The one thing I have noticed being a survivor and hearing the stories of other survivors, is there is a link between us and many other people who live with the idea that they should be quiet, that they should shut up, that they should not share completely what is on their heart. Fear of not being liked, fear of saying too much, fear of not being heard, these are complications that exist in many people, and it is an ill of our society.
If we are truly to overcome the painful feelings and experiences that we have lived through, then we are to shatter the belief that we are not good enough, exactly as we are. Everything that has happened to you was meant to be. My mother believed that to be true of our situation with my ex-stepfather Greg. And I believe it to be somewhat true myself. No matter how many times we may bust through our limitations, no matter how many intentions we set, and no matter how much bad Karma we have burned, there seems to be the lingering way of the collective that sometimes dominates our reality.
But when you are a practitioner of the Way, and when you seek refuge in the heart of awakening within, life and its circumstances become less of an obstacle and more of a training ground. We meet our life’s journey with a sort of hesitance now. And we can learn to meet our life’s journey, instead, with faith, with gratitude, and with determination.
We can instill faith in the power of love to guide us. We can instill faith in our ability to come through hardship with more strength, more wisdom, and with the capacity to reveal ourselves with humility, severing our commitments to egoistic desires. As survivors we are to become authentic human beings who meet the challenges of our present day and age with the courage to look beyond our differences, and to shine in our diversity.
We are to become leaders who have fought through the darkness, who have surrendered, and who have given in to the light, the love, the good in everyone. To be awake and aware is truly the gift we have been given by our abusers, and by our society. Without the hardships we have faced, without the turmoil, the pains of being abused, we may not have known this treasure that lives within us, and in every living being.
We have the ability to transcend experiences of the past, present and future. We have the ability to co-create the world we live in. And we have the ability to re-shape our lives just by the way we think, by the way we relate to what we have experienced.
Our life is no longer a battlefield. We may be involved in the many wars in our lifetime, politically, socially and economically. But the greatest war we may have to fight is the war against our anger, our greed, our own divisiveness, our arrogance, and our need to be a victim and to name all the people and things that have perpetrated us.
To be a peacemaker, to have a peaceful recovery, we must face the war within. And we must end that war, and allow the kindness within our heart to dominate. We must allow ourselves to reconcile with the parts of us we have denied, and the parts of others we may refuse to see: Their love, their kindness, their gratitude, and even their despair.
Those we see as our enemies, they are just like us, fighting a war they may not win in this lifetime. They have anger. They have pride. They have greed. They have disappointments. And one time in their life, they may have loved someone with all their heart, and that person may have denied their love, and they may have suffered greatly because of it. They may not have been able to cope with that loss, that denial. And so they let their pain overcome them, their anger won. And they in turn sought revenge through victimizing others. And while victimizing others, their pain, their anger, their hurt and despair increased, and their compulsion became a habit, one which may be very challenging to break.
We all have the potential of abusing others. And we are, right now, a part of a web that co-creates violence, discrimination, and hatred in the world. If we cannot take hold of our emotions, of our bodies, of our minds, and make peace with the parts of ourselves that want to go to war with everything and everyone we have chosen to be an enemy of, we become a perpetrator too. That “evil” is inside of you. That “evil” is a little seed or a big seed in your consciousness, in everyone’s consciousness. It only takes a little watering for that seed to grow. And with more watering, that seed can sprout, and grow bigger and bigger within in us until we cannot hide from it, and we cannot hide it from others.
My wish is to be a peaceful healer, and to have a peaceful recovery with memories of sexual child abuse. My wish is for all those who are survivors, and all those out there who feel they cannot be heard, to be heard. First, listen to yourself. Listen deeply to the story your body, your mind, your heart is telling you. Listen deeply and ask of it to share everything it has to share. Become a friend, a best friend to yourself. That is the Way. That is the love I am talking about.
Survivors and all people can have this love. It is possible. Love is possible for everyone.
In Gratitude for You,
Brian
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