Abusive relationships serve their purpose in your evolution

Trauma is the emotional wound that certain experiences can leave behind. As many of you know the effects of trauma can linger for years after the initial experience that caused it has been over.

It leaves behind Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, along with the tendency to project the pain of the experience on to our current situations. It essentially keeps us stuck in our past in a way that is negative and unproductive.

It thwarts our personal growth and can come in the way of the healthiness in our relationships. This includes both personal or business relationships.

It creates addiction and insurmountable substance abuse. The lives that trauma has claimed are countless.

There are different levels of trauma. Some of it is so violent and devastating that there’s really no human way possible to avoid accumulating it. i.e. creating it and storing it in your body on an emotional level. It is my experience that these traumas are able to be healed. It can take years of cellular, energetic clearing, depending on the person.

Learning to Find Your Voice

“The moment a woman comes home to herself, the moment she knows that she has become a person of influence, an artist of her life, a sculptor of her universe, a person with rights and responsibilities who is respected and recognized, the resurrection of the world begins.” 

“You have found your voice.”

That’s what the subject line of the e-mail said.

I stared at it for the longest time. I didn’t really even think that I wanted to open the note. The subject line was a gift in and of itself.

As I stared at it longer, my eyes welled up with tears. I had waited a long time to hear a message like that, much less read it in print.

Think about that phrase in the context of your own life. Think about someone saying that to you. How would it make you feel?

Do you feel as though you have found your voice, and if so, are you using it the way you want? If you haven’t, do you know what’s keeping you from finding it?

For many (and I’d put myself in this category) it can take a long time to find your own authentic voice. Over the course of my life, I’ve used my voice in a myriad of ways. I’ve used it to tell other people’s stories. I’ve used it to advocate for people running for office or causes I believe in. I’ve used it on behalf of those I love. I’ve used it lovingly, sternly, timidly, and assertively. And, somewhere along the way after using it enough, I’ve finally found my own true voice.

Happy New Year! I have been thinking a lot about this first newsletter of 2018. In a perfect world, I might be using this post to share with you some profound, uplifting, spiritual experience that I had ringing in the New Year and setting the tone for the upcoming year, but the fact is I cannot. I rang in the New Year experiencing emotions that ranged from horrified, shocked, and speechless to feeling victimized.

I was at what I thought was going to be a sweet get-together which quickly got hijacked by the bad behavior of a 40-year old woman who, in a nutshell, was committed to proving that she was right and everyone around her was wrong because they were not adhering to her demands and doing and acting as she wanted them to. Although I've only known this woman for a relatively short time, from what I have seen, this woman's bad behavior had nothing to do with New Year's Eve. It has been on display since the day I met her and from what I have heard from people closest to her, it has always been ever-present in her life – igniting toxicity, trauma, and trouble where ever she goes and with whomever she is with.

Yet, just as troubling as this woman's consistent bad behavior has been the reaction of everyone around her. Not wanting to have to "take on her stuff," they let her stuff dictate and infect every move, moment, and mood. That was until New Year's. Seeing the horror, hurt and humiliation reflected in the eyes of people like myself and others who were bystanders as we watched the events of the evening unfold, the people closest to this woman could no longer ignore the proverbial elephant in the living room. It was painfully obvious that the air and joy was being sucked out of the room and that their tendency to choose "harmony" over truth had landed them in hell and empowered bad behavior as well as a negative, venomous presence in the space. 

Interestingly, if I have seen any theme so far in 2018, it has been very much in keeping with the one I just described. I have already received numerous calls and messages from people who can no longer tolerate accepting or enduring the bad or inappropriate behavior of others to rule the roost, be it their children, spouses, co-workers, employers, or friends. They've had it with living in denial, turning a blind eye, trying to make it better, or being blinded by their own wishful thinking. The cost of living in an environment of constant judgment, righteousness, and pessimism has not only brought them down, but also been downright depleting. 

A new kind of power – authentic power – is replacing the old kind of power – external power. Authentic power is the ability to distinguish love from fear within yourself and choose love no matter what is happening inside you or what is happening outside you. External power is the ability to manipulate and control.

From the perspective of external power villains are powerful and victims are powerless. From the perspective of authentic power, the callous lust of one who abuses others to satisfy his (or her) destructive desires and the rage of those who are abused are both experiences of powerlessness. There is no power in abuse or revenge.

Sexual Assault is a violation that occurs in many different forms with the side-effects lasting a lifetime.

So, why does a victim stay silent at all?

I think it is easy to look at someone’s situation or circumstance and pass judgments based on what you would do. Because it is easy to say if…  then I would …

However, thinking about a circumstance or a situation and playing out the scenario in your head is extremely different than having lived it and experienced it for yourself firsthand.

Violations of this degree go far beyond the physical act. The victim is left with permanent emotional, physical, and psychological scars. Meaning that once the act itself is over, it isn’t over for the victim. The victim often re-lives that act repeatedly because of the multiple ways to which the violation impacts them. Leaving them with more than one could imagine, to learn to cope with.

Probably one of the most common reasons silence occurs is fear. But fear confines us all in different ways.

And a victim stays silent for several other reasons:

And as a woman who has experienced it, I wanted to offer some thoughts on how we can move through this with grace and really make a shift.

I also wanted to give a little insight into the mental and emotional gymnastics that a woman might go through as she tries to rationalize and accept what has happened.

Bill Cosby, Roger Ailes, Harvey Weinstein, Bill O’Reilly… just a few of the high profile sexual predators who were finally exposed.

Not one of them has really, truly apologized for their horrible behavior and the pain and suffering they have caused.

Weinstein blamed it on the “culture of his time.”  As someone who came of age in this culture, there were many times when my “bosses” came on to me sexually in the workplace.

The first time it happened, I was just out of college, working as a photojournalist for a weekly entertainment paper in Fort Lauderdale.  One day, the boss (whose name I have now forgotten, but I do recall he had a huge beer belly and wore white patent leather shoes) walked into my darkroom which was dimly illuminated by a red safelight.  With a sickening sneer on his face, and while grabbing himself, he asked: “Would you like some of this?” I put my hands in the developer pan and told him he if he took one more step I would throw the acid-based chemicals in his face, which sent him running. (I have no idea if this would have done any damage to him or not). It never occurred to me to quit this job that I loved and there was no one to tell.  It was a small staff, run by his much younger wife.

I thought I handled it pretty well considering….