The bullets whirled past my head and shoulders.
Horror encompassed every aspect of my being.
We ran. We ran like there was no tomorrow because we did not know if there was one.
I can still see the tall wheat grasses, golden in the afternoon sunlight, bending to our thrashing of them with each intensified step.
I can grasp ahold of my only hope that we would clear the field, clear the firehouse doors and make it to Laura’s house. Laura was the woman I thought of as my grandmother, although she was of no blood relation or family to me. She and her brother Art lived across the field from us in a house that was built a hundred years before. I loved to play barbies in her house breezeway and under the remaining orange grove trees in the spring and summer. Laura would make me iced tea and we would sit in her rusty metal rocking chairs as she told me tales of her youth. Laura was my sanctuary as a child. Her house was a magical mystery from times I only saw in movies and read about and Laura with her long silver hair and dress from something like Little House on the Prairie was a woman who I felt safe with and on this Spring Day in 1980 my mother was hoping to find safety at Lauras as well.
I was four-years old. My parents had been fighting off and on for a few days. My father had a temper, although most of the time he was calm, cool and collected. You never knew exactly what would set him off or when the eruption was going to happen. Life was peaceful and good 95% of the time and as long as everything was according to the order that he wanted it to be. My mother without true understanding pushed his buttons often with her carefree gypsy ways. However, today, today none of this was about any of that. It was about my mother wanting to visit her homeland of Germany and take me with her. It meant that we would be gone for four or five weeks, and I was so very excited about the adventures that lay before us on this journey. My father on the other hand, not so much. He was not good with his daughter leaving the country.
And so, the fight erupted and without notice, the shouting led to fists through walls and breaking glass, doors slamming, and threats being made. I played outside, next to the old water cooler where I had built a shelter. I felt safe, was out of the way, and could still hear everything. But today my mom ran to my little dome habitat and grabbed my hand, told me to drop everything and come. Barbie in hand she pulled me with all her might as we rushed through the yard and into the field toward Laura’s house. Her weeping was loud, and I did not understand what was happening.
Not until I heard the ring of my daddy’s pistol.
And then I understood.
I understood that he was mad and that something my mom had done had made him so.
I understood that in order to keep the peace with the man I looked up to, who was my world (because I was daddy’s little girl, he walked on water many days with me), the man who I believed would never hurt me, always keep me safe, loved me, cherished me and that I respected without question… I understood that this peace was shattered.
So much so that he was willing to shoot at us.
At me.
I had witnessed my father’s rage on a few occasions, and I already knew that he was not a man to be reckoned with. His word was the end of the line. He allowed me massive freedom in so many ways but demanded that I earn it. That I prove my worth and that I walk the line he had for me, and he demanded the same in a respect of my mother.
This day in my fourth year of life was a day that bore with it an education around a relationship with a man that I am pretty sure my daddy never wanted me to experience nor have ingrained at the level that it buried itself in my psyche. But that is the path of parenting, we are still humans, and we are wounded humans at that. We allow our ego’s, our fear and pain to overrun us like my dad had done on this day and we act without the foresight of what the repercussions are for those we love. Often these repercussions are years long and sometimes a lifetime.
What my daddy set in motion this day and events prior and after was the lesson of:
PISS A MAN OFF, GET HURT.
Don’t do what you know will keep the peace…
Speak up too much…
Don’t get it right…
Show too much emotion…
Or opinion…
Do anything that is not pleasing to what he wants and there WILL be hell to pay.
Perhaps even death.
I did make friends with the idea of death on this day and a few others that came close in similar events, and that is not a bad thing. I have understood that life is fleeting, and you never know when it’s gift of breath in your lungs will be taken from you, so enjoy the moment while you have it and be the best you that makes you feel good about yourself. Don’t take anything for granted.
Those are the gifts from this traumatic event.
The hard lessons that I have spent my life retraining myself on however, so that I can release myself from the shackles that I bought into in my youth, the ones that I get triggered daily with in my relationship with my partner, the ones that my clients bring to me and they wonder why I understand so deeply the fear, the need to be approved of, to not rock the apple cart in their relationships, the lessons that have seeped their way out and rebirthed themselves into sabotaging patterns with my friends and children. Those are the nasty boogers that just tear my heart out and demand that I find all the courage that I can muster up to overcome and get out of the comfort of what my psyche believes is true, and because of this illusion my body has been trained to believe it as well so looks for the feelings that it associates with this “truth” in the day to day relating of life and then reacts from there creating a vicious cycle.
But it’s not.
You see, I write this musing today because of a conversation a while back with my partner. I shared the anxiety that I feel so often in our relationship. It’s funny, he does nothing to cause it, but if we have any amount of confrontation, difference of opinion or if I simply perceive that he is pulling away for any reason my inner four-year-old little girl takes off running in fear for her very life.
Except I can’t blame my mom for upsetting the apple cart, I am the woman in the event rattling the cages and I stand before this man who I believes loves my every cell, has given so much of his life in our short time together to me and has done nothing but prove he will stand in the fire with me. There is no convincing my four-year-old though that she is safe. She has a track record from youth to other relationships to prove that she is not safe. No matter how drastically different he is or our relationship in comparison to the past …
She points to all the childhood moments when her father showed no love or concern but only rage and torment.
She points to the lies of her high school love and the abandonment she experienced.
She points to her saga of marriage where every day was about fighting, was about survival, emotional betrayals and sexual expectation’s. Being told she was crazy, being told that she was the problem and then damned for walking away from the marriage.
She points to the emotional warfare of her narcissistic, stonewalling sexually abusive relationship that followed that ended by her being physically broken and in the hospital.
She points to the crazy she did not see in her relationships; the way men have always only wanted to control her and called that love.
That four-year old has seen more than any child should ever have too.
And today she finds herself recognizing her truth.
She sees the lessons and she knows that they set a tone for a relationship with a man.
They set up an illusion as to what she should expect, should give, and should want in an intimate relationship. Creating weak boundaries. Poor self-worth. And a high level of responsibility for anything that appears to be wrong. A quick retreat. An even quicker need to run, to hide the delicate self.
Now, the grown ass woman, she knows this is all BS!!!!
She knows at her core that love does not demand that you see eye to eye or that one caves to the other and gives of themselves that, that deflates the very essence of who one is. The woman knows that love means that you accept the human error of your partner. That you cherish them even when they upset the apple cart. Your cart.
She is wise.
Not blaming her daddy, her mother or anyone she has ever been in relationship with and at the same time not owning it all for herself. Because she can allow herself to feel her pain, her fear, and let her tears fall to the ground where they will grow something beautiful. She can see that we are all victims of victims, wounded children acting from places that we do not recognize and causing us to fear this world. We are all scared.
Scared to lose.
Fearful of not being enough.
Or good enough for the one that we love.
And many of us do not understand that love means letting go,
While we cling to it with all the hope and enthusiasm as a child on Christmas morning.
No, we forget that love is fire that can be easily put out through control.
And that in our desire to control it to keep us and the one we love safe that in turn we make our beloved a slave.
We do not mean to cause harm.
We do not intend on creating trauma.
Yet we do.
But it always takes two to make lasting damage.
It takes two who are willing to dance in this sea of the ego.
I have had a life of emotional, physical, sexual abuse.
I could easily write this with the concept that life is not fair.
That I am a victim.
Or stay in the comfort of believing that how I perceive things is accurate for my relationships and that I am not worthy, not enough, too much to handle, too emotional, to ‘broken’ and not loveable. That would have a strange sense of security to it because these are belief structures that I grew up with, that I was shown and taught in significant ways.
However, that path will never be one that offers me the depth and truth that my soul craves.
It will only lead me into a deeper concept that love is something that you must sacrifice yourself for and that I am only allowed it “If I do what is required in the way that is demanded.”
It will never offer authentic emotionally mature relating, mature love.
And I would never achieve healing or happiness.
I would remain shackled to these false truths and beliefs.
My reality would not ever be altered.
And I would simply find no more reason to babble on here.
Why bother?
I share this tale like any of my tales with you because I want to provide you hope.
Hope and lessons, concepts at very least to help you see that you can achieve the life that you want for. You are worthy of it because you have a beating heart and air in your lungs, that is all that is required for your worthiness to have a good life. I want you to know that if a little girl from a nowhere spot in Northern California who grew up with not a whole lot can see that she is worthy and loveable just the way that she is, so can you.
I want you to be able to take my words and ask yourself, “Why am I accepting these lies as my truths? Why am I accepting so little for my life, for my relationship, my wellbeing? Why am I believing the triggering fear that stems from my body’s reactions to an illusion that it embraces as reality?“ And I want for you to get mad!!! I want you to be frustrated and tired of just letting life go by with some silly concept that you are going to survive it and that your days here mean nothing.
I want you to breathe in the fear of your inner child,
Comfort that sweet baby,
And grow the f-ck up.
Stop letting that kid rule your world with his/her perceptions.
Look your loved one in the eye and find a drop of faith that they actually love you.
And look yourself in the eye and find a drop of faith that God has a plan for you and that you might just like what is in store.
No matter what your story is, take it from this wounded soul…
You can change that story.
It’s going to take you wanting to so badly though, that you are willing to sacrifice the comfort of living in what you have been accepting all these years.
But you are worth that sacrifice and life is meant to be a beautiful, fulfilling thing.
Not just something to exist in.
Loving you from here always.
Stop Existing & Start Living
-KW
The body holds memory in its cells. Your organs, joints and muscles all contain emotional memory. Doing the mental/psychological work is vitally important however it does not release you from the bondage of your trauma. This can only be fully accomplished through physical release and restoration. Louise Hay studied this at great length and taught on the emotional connection to disease, ancient Chinese medicine studied the connection of the mind/body/emotional houses as well. Today science is proving that we are woven together and that by attempting to compartmentalize our very being into sections that we do not achieve the healing and transformation that we desire for any length of time because of this separation.
If you are tired of not having the lasting results in your self-growth and healing that you so badly want for and wonder why, look no further. Reach out to me today for your exploratory consult for structural quantum integration work where you will once and for all release the past traumas, restore vitality and health and have a fresh clarity on who you are and what your future can be.
Email me today.