- Genre:biography & autobiography
- Sub-genre:Personal Memoirs
- Language:English
- Pages:204
- Duration
- Paperback ISBN:9781667854281
- Audiobook ISBN:9781667886879
Book details
Overview
History is taught through stories; the young gather at the knees of their elders, and listen. The elders may not only be gathered to speak, to inform, but may also be gathered to heal themselves. I am a person who often doesn't know how I feel or what I need until I write it or somehow articulate it out loud. The telling of my story is not only for your eyes; it is also for my own understanding.
After a recent talk I gave on the correlation of multi-generational trauma and addiction, several attendees approached and began to share aspects of their personal stories. We were united, connected at a deep, communal level in understanding the pain of traumatic childhood experiences that haunt, and hinder, many of us to this day. We share our personal stories of trauma to help disempower the traumatic event. Traumatic experiences leave us feeling exposed and vulnerable, stripped by circumstances beyond our personal control. Many of us suffer in silence. We are too ashamed to share our traumatic experience with anyone, afraid others will judge us, or use it against us somehow. Many of us don't have the words to describe what has happened to us; others of us have pushed the memories so far underground that words alone can't excavate.
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My intention in writing this book is to share with you the story of my own trauma and the difficult, often circuitous and self-destructive path I took to acceptance, forgiveness, and love. First, tenuously, acceptance of those who had hurt me. Acceptance, in time, unfolded into forgiveness. The longer, harder path was to learn to love myself: it can be easier to love others than it is to truly love our own flawed, fragile selves. My hope is to show that suffering is not meaningless, and that, in fact, the very thing that brings us pain can, in time and with care, bring us a sense of liberation and purpose. I believe that inherent in suffering is an opportunity to transform pain and consciously use the experience as a progenitor of a new way of being, a new way of living, a new way of seeing the world, and perhaps being able to help others do the same. We are all unique individuals, many of us with deep wounds from our pasts. But we do not need to let those scars define, or defeat us.
The shape of my life, including my career as a psychologist and specialist in community-wide crisis management, was imprinted on my psyche by traumatic events in my early childhood. My journey of self-exploration, of learning and deeply knowing myself, required, requires still, years of reflection and personal reckoning. Looking back at my formative years and experiences, my travels in search of spiritual meaning and comfort, and the arduous route to recovery from alcoholism, I know that all these elements in time formed my perspective, my work, and my very soul. While my life was filled with poor decisions and bad choices, my experiences created the tapestry of Me.
Colored in hues dark and brooding alongside bright tones of lightness and hope, all threads twist and intertwine. I can no sooner disentangle this complicated tapestry now than I can predict its completion.
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