Tag: abuse

Mental is Physical

Yesterday I restrained my ankle walking through Philly’s Chinatown in search of meat on a stick. Over a month ago, I went over it, falling in a shallow hole in the meadow across from our home. I thought it was healed and haven’t gone to PT as I should. That re-injury yesterday was the reminder from my 25 year old self that I still haven’t fully addressed her wound. And so today up before the dawn, I pray. I have been experiencing obsessive thoughts and that is my pointer. Who is doing all this thinking? and what needs processing. I know how to build the door to heaven. I’ve built thousands of them.

I call it breaking through the firmament. It’s a veil between upper and lower realities. the lower densities contain shame, memory, pain, trauma, grief, fear and so much more. The upper chakras hold the lightness of being and if we yoke ourselves to God’s ways we will find healing. God is merciful and so I am merciful. God is filled with creative solutions and so my soul finds them as well. We have never been separate and I bring this to her– the missing me. She was lost in a sea of worry and anger. Rage really. She wrote a bunch of fuck you letters this morning as part of her process. To all the wedding guests, the bridal party, family. No one recognized her disguise as one placed on her by God– no , she was ignored. Her pain, the abuse, all of it. Ignored. Maybe that is the way of the world after all. Maybe that is the path of liberation. Not human compassion but human ignorance that dives us into the arms of the Divine. Our heavenly Papa. Where our true power lies.

So if that ‘s you today. Know I understand. It’s a very painful journey of transfiguring the creature. Pope John Paul wrote in “Light of the East’ that the transfiguration of the creature would inaugurate in the coming of the kingdom of God. And so here we are doing the inaugurating. Some days that’s a party and a feast and some days it’s crying into our coffee mug and writing fuck you letters.

But it’s not like before.

No, it’s nothing like that. Those years of having to pretend and act nice and be a pretty bride on the outside while the inside rots….

Build a Castle Within

During the years I penned my 1st book Kamikaze Yogi, I had the affirmation of my then male pastor. I’d go to see my mentor once and month and she’d say on occasion — Anita, do you realize how often you say that man’s name? In repsonse–Yes, Tip, I do realize. I care about that relationship. We call ourselves the preacher and the prophet.

It’s beautiful to build relationships! It’s hard work and they make us who we are. We nourish one another and challenge too. On the day he baptized me, my cousin had a vision of ‘something’ passing between us. Let me say that differently -on the day Jesus baptized me with his Holy Ghost I chose in my spirit to trust HIM in all that was about to unfold. We women have given our power away to man since the dawn of time.

I’m currently offering an IG body prayer each week for Lent this year as a complimentary practice to help others connect mind and body and awaken to the ways we all disparage these hard working creatures. This week I’m sharing from Eccl. 3:7 a time to break and a time to mend. Don’t we just hate the seasons of breaking? It could be job loss, divorce, illness, death..breaking is so painful.

When my book finally released, my pastor wrote the most beautiful heartfelt review on Amazon. My favorite line was about how ‘strange Anita’s writing can be because that is in line with the Bible. The scriptures are so very strange!”

But then in my spirit a week or so later I awakened to a knowing that the review had been removed. Yes, without first discussing it with me. As you can imagine this breach of trust ripped me to my core. From not just any friend, but my pastor, a man of the cloth. See what I did there? See how I had placed this ordinary human on a pedestal? This means I was meeting a part of myself lacking agency, a part that was disempowered from a prior ‘rupture’ by a man or men.

See how all things can work together for us to restore our identities and wholeness in Christ? It took me about 6 months to forgive and to discuss how I was taking my power back. Ultimately, my final lesson came when there was one more breach and I really wish I’d responded with ‘Get behind me Satan” because between us, there was a masculine/feminine demon dividing up the Divinely-ordained love that is available. Mutual respect and connection of the heart are what revelation speaks of in the new heaven and new earth.

But we cannot make others see and we can only choose to walk away with dignity, understanding that this is our story to tell.

Abuse fills our ears with the lie that we should keep quiet. For to keep secrets is survival.

I’m no longer in survival mode. I’m thriving. Especially after taking all this power back to fuel my voice in the world. Our nervous systems will keep us safe with our fawning, and our freezing. But we are able to move up into fight mode and stand up for ourselves. We do not have to abide by the ‘nice girls’ trope. We are to be authentic and with courage tell others what is and is not acceptable. We will not be bullied. Either the person plays by our rules or we walk away. We have choices and boundaries now. We no longer have to be held down by the boot of an imbalance of power.

Grab the soul key Jesus handed you and set yourself free my friends. Live a liberated woman in the ornate and many-roomed inner castle of your psyche. Your power is in your voice and your voice is a harmonic message of truth and love. The spiritual life is complex and beautiful and backed by God’s word.

1 Cor. 4:20 For the Kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of Power.