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.

Tools of the Trade

Tools of the Trade

During a one-on-one call, Savina asked me what tools I used to help myself out of my darkest days.

Now that really got me thinking. In those days, I didn’t have “tools”. I had no knowledge of what I was going through, and no idea of how to get myself out of where I was. I had only my faith and my instincts to guide me. To explain how I did this, I’m going to have to revisit my darkest moment. It’s a long story, so bear with me.

Let me take you back to the day of my “enlightenment”...

I was 14 years old. My face was covered in cystic acne. It was swollen and covered in large, purple welts. I had a couple of friends at school, but once that bell rang, I was all alone.

I was in so much emotional and spiritual pain that I put my hands up to my cheeks, ready to claw the skin from my face. I wanted to hurt that ugly mask. I wanted to tear it off. I wanted to feel physical pain that matched my emotional agony.

At home, the psychopath had her vicious way with me and I had no way of escaping. She was so cunning in her torture of me that nobody even suspected that my home life was anything less than ideal. I was an only child. What could possibly be better than that? Oh, how I hated that lie! At school, students and teachers alike tormented me. I saw the expressions on their faces whenever I passed by. I heard their remarks. I was laughed at, pushed, jeered at, and spat on. I suffered in silence, slowly dying inside. I had no safe place to hide. Nobody was going to save me. Nobody even knew who I was.

I went into the bathroom and looked at my ragged reflection in the mirror and wondered why. Why was my life like this? Why did I have to suffer? I tried to look to my future, but all I could see was the same, black, pain-filled days stretching on and on into eternity. Hope? There was no hope.

Die, you stupid, ugly, creature! Nobody wants you. I don’t want you. I don’t want to be you anymore. I hate you. Die!

I dug my fingernails into my face, but the pain wasn’t enough. I grabbed an old razor blade and held it against my wrist. Could I kill me? I looked into my eyes. Yes, I could do it. Do it! I lowered the blade and felt the cold metal against my skin. Nobody was home. They wouldn’t be home for hours. They were at a football match, and for once, had allowed me to stay home alone. There would be enough time.

A curious sense of peace descended over me. I was not afraid of death. Death was like an old friend. I’d visited death many times. I would be cleansed of this life so I could begin another. Whatever I was put here for, I had failed. It was over.

Again, I glanced up... and there, behind me, reflected in the mirror, was Jesus. My brother, my Lord, my one true love. I held my breath and looked into his eyes. His expression was sad. His eyes, so sad. He shook his head. I blinked. He was gone. I turned around. There was nobody there. I was alone.

But I could not shake that feeling. He was sad. He didn’t want me to die. Why didn’t he want me to die? What earthly good was I to Him?

Devastated, I put the razor away and went outside. If Jesus wanted me to live, then I would find a way to live, even if I didn’t want to. I would find a way. I had to. God was my true Father and Jesus was my true brother. Growing up without anyone, I always turned to them. I talked to them every night. I cried to them. I asked them questions and, in the silence of my heart, they answered. They never abandoned me. If they wanted me to live, then they must have a reason. I had no choice but to trust that they knew more than I.

I sat on the hard, concrete path, like I so often did, and looked out over the immaculately manicured lawn and garden. The early morning sky was crystal-blue and there was dew still on the grass.

I stared at a single dewdrop and watched the swirl of colors within its tiny, fragile frame.

My colors.

I didn’t realize it then, but I already knew the colors of my aura. I hadn’t seen it, but I recognized it within the dew drop.

And it was beautiful. So beautiful it brought tears to my eyes.

I placed my hands flat on the grass and felt the energy of the earth pulsing and flowing around me.

I “felt” the energy.

I sat up.

I “felt” the energy. I looked around and saw shimmering colors, rivers of energy flowing past me. I could “see” it. I could “feel” it. I could touch it!

I looked at another dewdrop and I could almost hear the music of life within it.

Jesus had given me a gift. He had opened my eyes to something I’d only been dimly aware of until that moment. He’d brightened my senses; brought to my attention the gift I’d been born with.

Tears flowed silently down my face and stung the acne. What a gift! What a curse! To be one of God’s ugliest creatures, to be able to see such beauty all around me and within me, but to never be a part of it. Such cruelty.

Surely this was not what He intended. Surely He didn’t bring my gift to my attention just to add to my torment?

I closed my eyes and let the earth’s energy sooth my pain. No. It was the beauty He wanted me to see – the beauty in everything, in everyone, even in me.

It didn’t matter if no-one else could see it. I would see it. I would live for it. If for nothing else, I would live for this – the beauty. I would be what He wanted me to be... someday. I would live for that. I would survive and learn to become the me He wanted me to be.

The energy, the shimmering colors – they would be my pathway back to me, to life.

My pathway got even harder after that. I’m not sure how I learned to put one foot in front of the other and keep going, but I did. I had to. I taught myself how to understand the colors and the shimmering rivers I saw all around me. Eventually, I learned how to understand me and the strengths within. Writing this paragraph makes it sound like I did all that in a couple of years, but it took many years. I’m 50 now, and I’ve only just scratched the surface.

Getting back to the “tools” I used: When I was 14, I had nothing to go by. I had no understanding. There was no “friend in need”, no mentor. Jesus and God were my constant companions – my only ones. I leaned on them. I leaned on my faith. I used my inner strength. I trusted my instincts. I drew energy from the earth itself. That was all I had. Faith, Inner Strength, Instinct, an ability to connect with the earth and the universe.

I guess I learned my lessons well, because I’m still here. I see and understand the colors of the earth and the universe, and I love all the colors of me. I can stand within the energy of the earth and love all that there is.

I used to say that this ugly duckling would only ever grow up to be an ugly duck.

But you should see the colors of my heart and soul. They’re so wonderful, so beautiful... the light of love that shines from within me is pure bright.

When I look around at people in the streets – just ordinary people – I see the colors of their souls. I wish you all could see yourselves as I do. The vibrant colors, the wonder of the beauty of the soul... My gift is truly a blessing.

My road wasn’t the easiest, but each day that goes by, I find something within it that I’m truly thankful for.

Love and Light

Heather