Practicing Being Grateful: A Process of Recovery from Childhood Abuse

Practicing Being Grateful: A Process of Recovery from Childhood Abuse

I first learned about “being grateful” in Narcotics Anonymous 33 years ago. As a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, these words sounded foreign to me. I learned to suffer at a young age, which became a conditioned way of life, and it was a shadow that followed me into adulthood. In short, I had nothing to be grateful for. It took me two years to become willing to look at my resistance to being grateful because I was afraid to challenge my conditioned belief that I deserved to suffer. My unwillingness to begin being grateful … Read more

Childhood Sexual Abuse Impact Survivors Physically

Sexual abuse is felt as a physical assault whether or not physical contact is made. If an adult is leering children experience the effects internally as sensations in their body. In fear we hold our breath, tighten up, get anxious, numb out, deaden, feel flustered, feel tingly to name a few. Those are body sensations that are experienced while the leering sexualized assault is taking place . . . all feelings are felt in our bodies and directly effect us physically. HOW ABUSE AFFECTS YOUR BODY Sexual abuse is frightening and painful. Even when experiencing … Read more

“I Want to Dare to Exist . . .”

Shauna Niequist

“I Want to Dare to Exist , and more than that, to live audaciously, in all my imperfect, lumpy, scarred glory, because the alternative is letting shame win.” Shauna Niequist

Swept Away on the Turbulent Wave of Remembering – Childhood Sexual Abuse

Swept Away on the Turbulent Wave of Remembering

Remembering is a wave of turbulence Spiraling down Believing you will die from its force Or drown in your grief over your loss of innocence Tumbling round and round Repeating over and over I was just a child At times the ride feels terrifying At times hopeless You want to rage at the injustice! How could this have happened? Will this ever end? It Will End If you don’t give up and You ride the wave to completion The immense turbulence will lessen And the once scary ride will be joyous by Lori Golden ======================== … Read more

Healing the Shame Within

HUNGERING SOUL … HEALING THE SHAME WITHIN My shame is a cloud prison My soul cries for something it cannot see It hungers to suck love’s milk and drink music A longing too deep to fill I want to cut thru these black and red clouds And breathe every bit of life lost God, open your blue and green door Let me rest my darkness in your open fields let me rock in your ocean’s cradle let me leap with your grey dolphins Let your sun burn my shame to whiteness By Lori Golden, self … Read more