Telling Stories

You asked about Shiloh Sophia.  I have been listening to one hour lectures every afternoon sponsored by Wild Free Beautiful You.   I think I sent you their link on a well-known social media site.  I just pasted it here below.  They keep the lectures on line and available for about 48 hours after they air.  Many of them have been very good, but you know some teachers simply resound with certain students' souls.  Shiloh Sophia spoke to me, and really made me feel. 

http://wildfreebeautifulyou.com/   ---  The lecture series site - lectures until November 16.
http://www.cosmiccowgirlsuniversity.com/   ---  Shiloh Sophis's site

When I read your last post, something came to mind.  I counseled nursing mothers for several years when my little ones were very little.  I spent a lot of time on the phone with young moms.  What I learned, and what I have found is still true today, is that moms need to tell their birthing stories.  We don't have a way to share our stories in this fast-moving, impersonal world.  And our stories define us.  Young pregnant women complain when older women tell their stories, but we need to.  We haven't processed all the way.  And telling our stories makes us mothers...deeper and deeper we embrace the transforming power of the story and we become the mother.

We experience things, but we make sense of them by telling the story.  We need someone to listen to see, in their eyes, if the story makes sense.  I often pseudo-remember lines from movies...lines that are important. (I get the gist, if not verbatim)  In Shall We Dance Susan Sarandon's character says we fall in love and marry because we need a witness for our lives.  Abused kids are ashamed, and are silent.  There is no one to tell our stories to.  If we try, we get the neighbor lady shaking her head and saying, "Oh, he's doing that again."  No one sees us, no one witnesses what we go through.  In isolation we are invisible. It is almost as though we don't exist.  The only us that existed were the clean, smiling little girls who went to school or to church and who looked normal.  The rest was invisible.  We survived, we were allowed to be part of the family only because we were silent and invisible...How can we tell the stories?  How can we overcome such strong conditioning?

We need to tell our stories.  We need our community, our tribe, to hear us, acknowledge our experiences and to accept us and tell us we are okay - no matter what, we are okay, we are acceptable, we are loveable, we are worth loving.

Stories like yours will take a long time, a deepening and deepening retelling.  And as someone listens and acknowledges, and you know you are safe, more details will emerge.  We share, we look to see if we are still acceptable, we share more...

And I completely agree that we are looking for a quick fix.  No one is prepared for the long grueling task of digging through the muck.  Everyone wants to throw compost on the swamp, plant flowers and call it beautiful!

I have missed you for the past few days.  I definitely noticed the lack of you in my life.

I have been hitting on something and I don't know where it will lead, but I am starting to have physical memories (I feel it with my body, but don't consciously remember it...) of being restrained.  The memory is uncomfortable.  It is frightening.  I am trying not to avoid it.

Loving you!!  Clare