Where Do I Belong?

By Laura

From the time I was a child I felt disconnected from this earthly place; profoundly lonely for home. It has taken me more than 40 years to discover the way back. My story is how life can be an illusion we create to protect against the feelings we think are too painful to feel and overcome. I have included a poem that I wrote before I started inner bonding that describes the feeling of living an inauthentic life. I hope this writing inspires someone to continue on their journey even if they think the path is too steep.

I have wanted to go home since I was a child.  For me home was not physical.  It was not to my parents and siblings.  My profound loneliness had me wanting to go home to where I came from before this lifetime.  I was never sure where that was but I was homesick for that loving connection.

 

I never felt connected to the people in my life.  My mother was doing the best she could.  She provided a clean home, meals every day and disciplined when necessary. 

 

My father was someone I was always afraid of.  I never wanted to spend time with him.  I had no child/parent relationship when I was small.  I was the third child in 3 ½ years to a young mother.  At 24 she had 3 babies, a new home, a dog with new puppies and was overwhelmed.  I felt from infancy that I was unwanted in this world to the parents I had chosen to be mine.

 

During her pregnancy with me her father died suddenly at an early age.  That grief she felt and the fear she felt for her mother transferred into my being.  I was born to a sad, overwhelmed mother.

 

My happy moments were found in the woods as a child.  I was an explorer not afraid of bugs, crawling creatures or snakes, which I have a healthy respect for.  I loved to pick leaves, smell flowers, taste plants and smell the earth. My favorites were the salamanders.  My friend Linda and I collected them in small terrariums.  We recreated the forest in them with moss, sticks, rocks and small plants.

 

My mother gave me a wonderful appreciation for birds and creatures.  She often let my salamanders go when I wasn’t around.  I never really minded because I could go exploring again.

 

In the house I wasn’t happy.  I was often the target of name calling and teasing.  I was sensitive and was an easy mark for my also emotionally injured siblings.  My older sister was extremely thin and wore slim clothes which I inherited because I only wore hand-me-downs.  Those clothes were tight on my average body.  Even my mother joined in telling me I was wearing a sausage suit.  Often it was at dinner they teased and I had no way to speak up for myself without severe reprimand by my father.   On one occasion I screamed at them to leave me alone and then spoke back to my father.  He backhanded me and then chased me to the bathroom where I locked the door and he nearly broke the door down.  Nothing was said to the teasers.  I was not able to cry in front of my father either.  He had no tolerance for crying.  It was mandatory to not show any emotion to him. 

 

I learned to be a good girl early on, to do well in school and try to be good for them.  I was not always successful and paid the price.

 

A happy time for me was riding horses.  My uncle managed a polo club where they gave lessons.  I was allowed to take lessons for a while for free.  This was a joy.  I excelled at this being naturally athletic.  I rode a spirited horse that was difficult to control.  I loved it.  I learned to ride and jump.  I even entered a horse show with borrowed clothes. I hated that because I never thought I was good enough and was never dressed correctly.  One day money became more important than my happiness to my uncle’s girlfriend and the lessons ended.

 

As I approached puberty my childhood came to an end.  My breasts grew and attracted attention from predatory boys and men.  I was exposed to neighbors who touched me and exposed themselves.  My own brother began peeping and touching that tortured me for years.  The ugliness of being an object of desire branded itself in my being.  I was confused about getting attention I never had and being disgusted by unwanted attention.  I began to see myself as a victim with no choices, resigned to the fact that this was my fate.  I believed no one really wanted me for real.  I felt unprotected and uncared for.  My mother would care for me if I was sick but did not know how to protect me from the abuse of my brother.   I never felt protected, loved or wanted.

 

Depression and isolation became my friends.  I ruminated and caused myself fear by creating situations in my mind about anything that scared me.  I lost confidence in people and myself.  I longed for security and to go home.  At least ‘there’ I would feel safe.  I often thought of suicide as an easy road back but could not do it.

 

I felt like a magnet to predators at school, at work, and at home.  How did they pick me out?  What did they all see?  I must be bad and somehow attract them, an easy mark for those who would take advantage of an injured soul.  

 

There was no escape.  I went through the motions of school, work and living.  I cried for my losses and my broken lonely heart.  I felt that no one wanted me for whom or what I was.  They just wanted to use me. 

 

In college, 650 miles from home I wanted to recreate myself.  My parents had dropped me off and taken off the next morning without a goodbye.  Somehow people at college were able to see that I didn’t have the money they did and I began to be labeled.  I was labeled as easy which was so hurtful and not true.  I had befriended a guy with a bad reputation who was so fun and loved to dance with me.  We had a ball at the fraternity parties.  People were jealous I think of our fun.  I never trusted him with an intimate relationship although we talked about it.  He had too many covert partners and had a reputation for it.  His reputation stuck to me.

 

I was the victim of a predator in college in my first year.  This caused me even greater shame. 

 

College was freedom to me but not without injury, heartache, and feeling I was never enough for someone to love.  I dated someone for 2 ½ years.  I thought for the first time I was enough for him because he was jealous and possessive.  I allowed him to separate me from my friends, a fact that I regret to this day.  I thought I was in love but in the end he had been unfaithful after I made sacrifices for him.  I lived with his parents for a whole summer because he told me he would break up with me if I didn’t.  He went to Texas to work and when I visited he had a girl he was seeing and love letters from another.  I was crushed. 

 

I returned home after college with no more confidence than I had going in.  My brother was out of the house for a short time but returned home soon after.  He left me alone but I had to check daily to make sure I was safe.  I had no confidence that I was worth anything and that anyone would hire me.  Why would they, I didn’t believe it.

 

Eventually I found a job in commission sales where I immediately attracted the attention of a very handsome and seductive man.  He worked hard to seduce me from the moment he saw me.  I was taken in.  I was desperately wanted for the first time.  He wouldn’t take no for an answer.  We did some fun things together.  He was so attentive.  Unfortunately he was also married and I learned that the day I met him was the first day home from his honeymoon.  I knew it had to end.  There was another person involved.  I had to give up the one person who wanted me.  I quit my job to get away from him.  He stalked me and I fled to Cape Cod with my parents to get away.  There I met Anthony, my future husband.

 

He had a home, a good job, and a large family who was very supportive of one another.  He was interested in me.  He wanted me to come to New York to date him.  I eventually did.  He had lots of friends and I settled into a pattern with him.  I was routinely warned about the amount of past girlfriends he had.  He had been engaged twice before.  I was often afraid he would find someone else.  He never wanted me the way Gary, the married man, did.  I could never figure him out.  He was emotionally aloof, always holding back.

 

He won a trip after we had dated for 6 months.  He told me I couldn’t go unless I was his wife.  We married.  My gut told me not to but I wanted security.

 

I moved up to New York to a dirt road, no family, no friends of my own, no money, and no job.  He liked that.  After a few months I found a job and a place to exercise.  We started to fight about bank accounts.  He wanted my work money in his account that my name was not on.  As with my family I soon learned that things would go better for me if I was compliant.  I had to hang the toilet paper the ‘right’ way for him and fold the towels the way his mother did.  It didn’t matter I told myself I could be what he wanted.  I could create a loving relationship by being what he wanted.  I had to be who his family wanted also.  They were a super judgmental bunch, critical of everyone.    I learned to cook well and had a child.  I hosted Christmas just days before giving birth to my daughter.  On the first night home from the hospital with my daughter I set the bassinet next to the bed.  I had stayed in the hospital only 3 days after my C-section and came home with no pain medication.  It was my birthday.   At bedtime, when my daughter made her first peep, my husband told me to get up and ‘get her out of here.’   He had to get up for work after all.  I complied, and in pain, without a word, moved that bassinet to the nursery where I spent most of the night in a chair crying for what I knew was a bad marriage choice and for the physical pain I couldn’t escape. 

 

Depression overcame me.  I had given up my job.  I was home in the winter heating my house with wood.  I shoveled, ran the snow blower and kept house.  I felt like a prisoner.  The more I did the better he liked it.  He took no interest in the baby, letting me do all the work.  He never got up at night, fed her, or changed her.  I had no relief.  We had built an addition, tiled the bathroom floor and had built an office in the basement.  He wanted to do every project ourselves.  While I was home with post-partum depression following a C-section carrying wood and taking care of everything, he went to California for business.  He decided to stay an extra 4 days to travel to see the wine country.  I was alone with no family or friends.  His family never visited or called.  They called him.  My parents had come for the birth and a couple days weeks earlier.  I never spoke up.

 

Life went on like this and I had another child.  More desperate depression and anxiety followed the birth.  He didn’t care or feel he needed to help me or relieve me of the babies for even a minute a day.  I was overwhelmed.  He didn’t care.  His sister told me I was just impatient.  The children were my responsibility.  He use to laugh and tell people, “Laura can’t go she has kids.”  He went on two ski trips each year and hunted constantly during the season.  I never left the house without both kids.  On one occasion I threatened to leave when the kids went to school.  He asked me what I was waiting for and told me to leave our youngest child.  I couldn’t go.  I sought therapy but made a bad choice and ended up feeling more desperate.  The therapist didn't recognise post-partum depression and told me I was a bad mother.  I wasn't sure I would survive the pain I endured from that.

 

We finally sold our house and moved to suburbia.  I was afraid I wouldn’t be accepted.  I felt people would see my imperfections.

It was easier living on a quiet paved street with other kids around.  I had to make people see me as a valuable, worthy person.  I dressed right.   I did the right things.  My house was neat and my yard perfect.  The girls were dressed in dresses and we sat in the front of the church.  We were a good catholic family.  I hated that my husband wanted to leave before the music stopped.  I thought it would make us look bad.  I taught religion, volunteered at school, cooked and baked for school, friends and family, worked in a soup kitchen and tried to be a good mother.   My reward was I was able to work out.  I needed that to survive and to look good.  I can’t say that I had a bad life.  I was able to stay home with my girls and had time to work out and started to play tennis.  The problem was that I had no connection to my husband.  We went through the motions daily.  I loved when he was away.  He stayed in his office or in the bedroom and avoided family time at all cost.  We did eat dinner together daily after we waiting seated at the table for him to come to the table.  He routinely made us wait with our dinners in front of us.  He would have to be called 2 or 3 times and then would use the bathroom and get a drink.  He seemed to irritate us on purpose. 

 

My husband began to bring pornography home to spice up the bedroom.   Soon he would not be without it.  At first I thought that it was good.  I didn’t have to pretend to be that interested in sex.  Soon I realized that he was no longer interested in me and since we had no intimacy to start with, he was just using me as his blow-up doll.  I felt constantly violated but I complied always.  It was easier than fighting.  I did say frequently that I hated the porn and wanted it out of the house.  He would say he loved it and it would stay.  He would not have sex with out a strong drink for himself and always fixed one for me.  He insisted even when I told him I didn’t want it.  Every weekend he had to watch while we had sex.  I contested but he didn’t care.  I began to take myself to another place in my head.  Men told him how lucky he was.  I believe he told them about the porn which shamed me even more.  I could not remember the last time he kissed me; it had been more than several years, probably 10 years.  There was no affection or intimacy.

 

Friends and family and others admired me for all that I did.  That was my validation.  If they knew the truth they would know I was shamed, felt dirty, somehow unlovable and bad inside.  His family thought that I should do more, to work and make a living.  My tireless life of doing for others ahead of myself wasn’t enough.  My endless striving to look good, respectable, self sacrificing was never enough.  The marriage kept the predators away but I was allowing my own husband to prey upon me.  I was a prisoner to him.  My own self limiting beliefs held me there.  I was punishing myself.

 

The rest of my life that appeared like the good life to everyone else was overshadowed by my feelings about our personal relationship.  I began to get sick with unusual symptoms.  Aside from pneumonia one summer and the flu one fall all the other symptoms showed no abnormalities in any blood test.   My chiropractor asked me at every visit what the stress was in my life.  I thought I could just deal with it and I told him it was just teenagers and life.  He said that the stress was wearing down my adrenals and I would continue to get sick, possible seriously.  I had been told this before by another chiropractor.  My doctor frequently asked me if I was depressed.  I told him no because it didn’t feel like the hard depression I had post birth or as a teenager.  I didn’t know that my complete and total abandonment of my inner child due to the caretaking was causing me a slow stressful death.

 

I wanted to know why I was sick.  I was the one who took care of me, who ate right and exercised religiously.  I should be healthy.  I read books and articles on nutrition, health and spirituality.  I listened to tapes on goals, self confidence and the power of positive thinking.  I had been to therapy.  I didn’t smoke and drank very little.  I hadn’t abused drugs ever.  I should be healthy. 

 

I prayed for help.  I had lain in bed on and off for my whole marriage wanting a partner who adored me, who valued me.  I wanted a partner who was thoughtful and surprised me with an occasional gift, someone who didn’t just buy out of obligation.  I had wanted an active father for my babies when I needed it.  I wanted a man who wanted to hold, feed and change his precious babies. Recently, he had been there for them in their sports but little else.

 

I wanted a lover in this partner, a man who saw my inner beauty and worth, appreciated my hard work and sacrifice.  I wanted to feel attractive to him and be kissed with love and passion; to be touched with kindness and love.  I wanted someone to tell me to rest when I did too much and worked too hard.  I wanted someone who cared about what I felt and wanted; someone to listen to me.  I cried in the dark, alone many nights.  The sacrifices were getting too heavy. 

 

A girl friend told me I just needed to be more grateful for what I had.  I tried a gratitude journal.  I was grateful for so many things but the lonely feelings I had had all my life persisted.  Why me?  Why could I not be happy?  I had a good life didn’t I?  I had money to spend and healthy children and nice house and went on nice vacations.  What was wrong with me?

 

One day I walked into a yoga class at the YMCA.  I had taken yoga before.  There was a male teacher.  Honestly, I was somewhat uncomfortable.  He put me at ease with his kind touch.  After a couple weeks he told me that he had to tell me something and would I meet him after class for coffee.  I was nervous but agreed.  I was extremely uncomfortable.  I was sure someone would see I was doing something wrong.  He pointed out that I was totally controlled by what everyone thought of me.  I know he was right but I had to be seen as a good person.  That was my identity.

 

He read my pain.  He told me about my life and how it was going to make me sick.  He saw who I was, how I was starved for love and companionship.  I had hidden the depths of this from even my close friend.  For the first time someone else saw it.  He assured me that what I was experiencing with my husband was abuse and I deserved better.  For once, I felt that it wasn’t just me being ungrateful like I had been told by myself and the family.

 I was shaken to the core and wrote him a note not to talk to me that way at the Y; the Y was my place of peace and a stress-free zone for me.  I didn’t want him to change that.  I continued to go to yoga and he eventually brought me the book, Do I Have to Give Up Me to Be Loved By God.   

My life was forever changed as I read that book.  My life was written into the pages.  It answered all the eternal questions I had.  Answered the questions of why I was lonely.  I knew my marriage was over but my caretaking was so extreme the pain was nearly unbearable.  I lost 10 pounds and couldn’t sleep.  My husband began to grow angry at me as I read the book.  He was verbally abusive because he wasn’t used to me sitting when I should have been up doing something.  He felt something changing in me. 

 

I had no job; I had given up a part-time job to work around his vacation schedule.  I had not been able to work full time because I was so involved with the children and the household.  We took 6 different weeks of vacation.  I was weighed down by responsibility and unable to live my own life.  How could I leave?

 

I began to feel the first step to building trust with the inner child was to start to stand up to him.  I was afraid.  The few times I had he yelled in my face that he made the money and would do what he wanted.   I didn’t know how to do it.  Margaret Paul’s words told me that I had to overcome the loneliness, depression, and low self-worth.  I didn’t think I was capable of it. 

 

My yoga instructor became my constant strength and support.  I had no close family and only one friend to help me.  He was there totally believing in me and the power of inner bonding.  As I struggled he pushed me and worked on himself as well.  He saw me as inherently good, not bad.  He reinforced that it was just that we believed ourselves as shamed, bad, and unlovable but it wasn’t true.  We were children of God

 

My husband offered me an opportunity to ask for separation. 

 

After a Halloween party one Friday where pitchers of cosmopolitans were served and our drinks never were empty, I was seriously intoxicated.  I knew this was a mistake for me but I had met up with a friend who I hadn’t seen in years and she was upset that her husband had asked for a divorce.  I told her she was lucky that was what I wanted; for him to want to leave. We cried and laughed all night.  That evening unable to sleep or even lay down, I emailed my yoga instructor and thanked him for setting me free, for knowing that Margaret’s book would save my life.  This was such taboo for me.  I had been faithful to my husband for more than 20 years and this felt like cheating.  Just writing an email to another man seemed wrong.

 

The morning after the party found me very sick to my stomach.  I woke with dry heaves and a head ache.  I was never able to drink much and my drinking was usually limited to the small glass of wine at the dive on date night.  I rose from bed carefully.  After a while I nursed a small amount of oatmeal, a morsel at a time, hoping it would stay down.  My husband, annoyed with me for not paying attention to him at the party and for being sick on a Saturday told me to come to the garage, he had a ‘project’ for me.  I told him that I was sick and didn’t want to.  He said, “If you can sit there and eat oatmeal you can do this project.”  I complied.

 

The project…mounting the antelope scull and antlers from his last expensive hunting trip to Iowa.  I had to get up several times for fresh air and to stand in the bathroom but I did finish it.  I felt relief and went to bed to lie down for a while.  After about 15 minutes he came up and told me he wanted sex.  There was no question of whether or not I wanted it, it was a statement.  He went right into the closet for one of his XXX video he loved so much. 

 

At that moment I became aware of and did not ignore the degree of disrespect and abuse he had towards me.  This awareness and disgust touched that thread of strength I had created just by reading Margaret’s words.  It gave me courage to fight my caretaking and avoiding confrontation and I sat up and said I was sick and I would not watch the video, and that I would never be part of that again.  With viciousness and venomous rage he yelled that I had just ‘ruined the one good thing we had,’ and he changed into his hunting clothes and stormed out.  I said to him on the way out that I hadn’t even said I wouldn’t have sex with him.  Had I really said that?  Had I almost sacrificed my body again?  I was thankful he was more interested in the movie than me. 

 

The next day I told him we needed marriage counseling and he responded,” I am not going to let any f…ing probably, divorced marriage counselor tell me that I am doing anything wrong.”   That was strike two in my mind.  I knew it was over for us but how could I give up my whole life, an identity that I had meticulously created for myself to avoid anyone seeing who I really was?  Who would I be?  What would I be?  A loser with nothing…better off dead.  I had to work this out didn’t I?  I could do it; after all, I had done it for 20 years.

 

The third day he put his finger in my face and told me that if I didn’t ‘do this’ for him because I knew how he loved it, (participate in sex with porn), that we had issues and he thought we needed to go our separate ways.

Strike three…those words set me free. 

 

But freedom is too scary, too void.  I felt like I was jumping from a cliff without a chance of a safe landing.  I couldn’t do it.  Margaret said I had to.  My friend and yoga teacher said I had to.  He, my husband, was abusing me and I would get sick…I would die.  I knew they were right.  That moved me forward.  I didn’t want to be sick but I didn’t know how I would find the strength to do this.

 

It was traumatic.  The depression was crippling.  My husband knew how to hurt me.  He cut off my income and ability to get money, leaving just enough for me to interview a lawyer though.  He never thought I would leave him.  I had no job.  He called me loser, a leech, and lazy.  This from a man who I had done everything for except his job.  These words seared into my being.  Every bad word ever said against me had stuck like a sharp pin in my heart.  I had no loving adult.  My Unloving adult/wounded child hammered me with all these words and more.  I judged myself so severely I wanted to die.  I sought weekly therapy to have someone to talk to.  He somehow listened into private phone conversations and taunted me with what he heard.  He knew where I went and I never knew when or what he would do. 

 

He started taking over all my responsibilities with my daughter, getting up before me to make her breakfast and drive her to school.  He bought her whatever she wanted and left me out of everything.  He grocery shopped just enough for them and didn’t buy the food that I ate that was different from theirs.  He began to stay home every day and set up his computer at the kitchen table leaving me no space in the house to reside except in my small guest room.  He had the master bed and bath, the office in the basement and he sat in the middle of the open kitchen, family room area.  I had to leave the house daily with no where to go.  I often sat in my car crying.

 

I was void of confidence to take care of myself.  I thought the world now viewed me as junk; an ungrateful loser who would end up alone and destitute.  Then I realized that’s what I was telling myself.  My world was so controlled by judgment of myself I didn’t think I could stop.

 

My friend gave me this painful reality; it is your fault takes responsibility for how you are feeling.  It is not his fault how you feel, it is yours.  Taking responsibility for these false beliefs and not blaming anyone else was excruciating.  I had to blame him.  Look what he did to me….but I allowed it.  It was my fault.  His behavior could have been stopped if I had stood up long ago or I could have left then.  I had to start feeling these feelings that were so frightening and took me to the darkest places of my soul.

 

One particular day, I thought the black hole of grief would hold me down and drown me.  I begged and prayed for help believing that only Jesus Christ himself could save me from this pain.  He did.  I heard him say after I asked, “I will hold your child for you, feel this and you will be OK.”  I knew I would survive it but the pain was intense.  It was the grief of ages…past lives, and the grief that was passed on to me from my mother along with the complete and total abandonment of my inner child in sacrifice to everyone else.    It was the pain I had protected against for more than my lifetime.  I knew I was born with some of it and it was my work to heal it.  I wasn’t sure how exactly but my friend and Margaret Paul had given me the strength, courage and some tools to work with.  I slowly began to talk to this inner child.  She didn’t want anything to do with me.  I prayed for help and ordered, Healing Your Aloneness.  I began to do simple meditation.  I judged this too though.  I didn’t know how, it didn’t work; I was doing it wrong, etc… I ordered the inner bonding meditation CD and used it to help me sleep while I continued to do my simple meditation.

 

In a dream the pressure in my eyes was extreme.  I had been suffering with chronic dry eye and other issues related to stress.  All at once I saw me inner child open her eyes.  My grandmother, the only living soul I believe to ever love me without conditions told me that she was murdered in the next dream.  She didn’t want to go and leave me.  I am not sure exactly why she told me this.  I called my mother to confirm that there was something suspicious about the death and she answered that there was but no autopsy was done. 

 

From that point on I began to have more and more belief that I was going somewhere, that I had some power, even though small, to start to help myself.  I still couldn’t see myself as a worthy, deserving person though.  I thought what I was doing to my husband was wrong.  I was hurting him.  I was still judging myself and continued to abandon my inner child.  It was baby steps in an effort to build trust that I would take care of my inner child. 

 

The pain still made me want to die.  I felt everyone around me would be better off if I were dead.  It would be easier for them…caretaking still.  I was addicted to the point that I was almost willing to kill myself for their feelings.

 

As a spiritual person, or trying to be, believing in the power of prayer and faith, I could not kill myself.  I always believed that I had a chance.  My sister had tried on three occasions.  I had seen that it was not easier for everyone else.  It was awful for her and for all around her.  I watched another sister drown her pain in alcohol and drugs; feeling helpless to help her when I couldn’t help myself.  Ironically, the two of them thought I had the perfect life; 2 children, a husband who was successful and a nice home in suburbia.  I went on nice vacations, went to church, volunteered and was an attractive member of society.  But… we were exactly alike; we just used different forms of control and protections to make our lives tolerable.  I just couldn’t look bad that’s all, and drinking made me sick.

 

I called Nancy Swisher, an inner bonding facilitator that Margaret Paul had recommended when I emailed her with a question.  I told Nancy that I wasn’t capable of doing this on my own.  I couldn’t move forward any further.  I was too injured and no one had taught me how to take care of myself, to stand up for myself.  I was taught just the opposite, don’t stand up or you’ll be in trouble and you had better not cry in front of anyone. 

 

I had started to spend more and more time with my friend who had given me Margaret’s book.  We talked about inner bonding and how it worked and about my issues.  Discussing the process made it easier and to have someone there to reinforce it made me feel stronger.  It was when I went home that I often crashed.  We began using our non-dominant hand to allow our inner children to express themselves.  I found this very helpful.  I loved to draw and often words were written from my inner child telling me how she felt.  The pictures were often reflective of her feelings of loneliness and anger.

This made me feel more in touch with her and she felt I was listening more and more and we developed a trust we had to work on.  Drawing and writing with the non-dominant hand is very helpful and expressive.

 

Nancy helped me connect to this inner child with issues that I could not get to the root of and gave me plan on how to think more positively about my future.  I was addicted to negative thinking and ruminating about the bad situations that would happen to me. 

 

When you take responsibility and want and deeply desire to learn to heal even through the smallest crack in our protection from feelings, love can seep in and start to touch your soul and your inner child can begin to have some faith in you in small amounts.

 

In the words of my friend and yoga teacher, learning to stop judging and learning to have compassion for all of our wounded parts as they are, wounds and all, allows us to bring love to them, to heal them.  Compassion is the suspension of judgment and allows us to gain the trust and love of our inner child. 

 

This bridges the disconnection and creates the beginning of a spiritual completeness through the connection of our essence and God’s love.  It is a reuniting of the wave with it’s ocean of love. 

 

Thanks to Nancy Swisher, the panic and anxiety over my future has been replaced slowly by positive thoughts.  These are the baby steps that grow each day.  It is daily work.  Sometimes minute by minute work to stay present in this moment, assuring myself that I am OK.  I only have to get through one minute at a time. The words of Eckart Tolle, in his book, The Power of Now, were invaluable as were the words of Paul Ferrini in Love Without Conditions.    

This is my journey, my work.  In this lifetime I will achieve what I could not in the past; a recovery of my soul, my inner child, and my essence, perfect and in the image of love.

 

I credit this journey first to myself and my quest for the truth and for finding the courage to search and move forward.  I also credit Daniel, my close friend to whom I am forever connected, who was drawn to me and me to him to help each other in our journeys.  He has provided me with the words of Margaret Paul, who I think is a gift to the world from God, and the words and wisdoms of his and his past teachers, his love and complete and unwavering belief in the goodness and light of my inner being. 

 

Nancy Swisher continues to guide me through the storm helping me to see the beauty of the rain and the thunder and teaching me that the greatest joy can lie opposite the greatest pain, and that our gifts lie sometimes in the deepest darkness of our soul. 

 

Out of the darkness and cold

come the flowers I love so much

in the spring. 

 

My journey continues…

 

Laura

This poem was written before I found inner bonding. 

The Pillar

 

I was the pillar

Physically strong

Willing

I was the giver

The responsible one    

Never denying

Never asking

The outsider

Secretly wanting

 

I was the supporter

The nurturer

The caregiver

The helper

The rock

Secretly needing

 

I hid my fear

I hid my heart

Sometimes it slipped to my sleeve

Easily bruised

Tears flowed too often

No one wondered why

That was the vulnerable side

No one saw

For I was the pillar

 

I am the pillar

Now fragile

Now crumbling

No one can see it?

No support

For pillars are strong

Are they not?

 

But the weakness has grown

Not nurtured

Not cared for

Not seen

Pillars are deceiving

They need repair

 

No one observant

Now it’s too late

The pillar is weak

The disappointment too great

The core is hollow

Is crumbling

Is tired

Beyond repair

 

 

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A Testimonial "The intensive was a wonderful learning and growing experience. I would recommend it to anyone who is interested in learning more about themselves and their relationships. Margaret is a wonderful and gifted teacher." 2/02 - Lucerne Valley, CA Lee Ann Lanning,Vice President and CFO Fort Wayne,Indiana 260/484-8631 llanningDELETE_HERE@dmainc.com