Grace and Clarity

This week we conclude our three-part saga about overcoming loneliness and embodying spiritual strength.  In chapter three we learn how one woman found healing and support through the help of those around her.  If you have not done so already, please be sure to read chapters one and two of this amazing story.  And now, the conclusion of “Christie’s Secret becomes Self-forgiveness…”

I’m not sure anything could have cut through the fear of judgment I felt during this time of disbelief and isolation in my life.  I was lost, confused and scared beyond belief.  I felt desperate.  My biggest fear were regarding what my parents, family and others would think of me.  I went to a confessional hoping to find some relief from my guilt; but even that wasn’t enough.

Later the self-judgment and shame would be the biggest obstacles I had to overcome and to be totally honest, I’m still working through them. Hiding behind the walls of perfection, busy-ness, achievement, care-taking and people-pleasing has robbed me of a deeper, more authentic relationship with others.

But fortunately, there are also various things that have helped me, including:

• Healing my body, mind and connection with Spirit. I feel an immeasurable amount of gratitude, respect and deep love for my teacher and gifted healer.
• Receiving an extraordinary message of peace and absolution through the gift of my Spirit Guides.
• Hearing another woman’s story and realizing that if I didn’t judge her, how could I possibly judge myself?
• Reading the chapter “Hard” from Carry on Warrior by Glennon Doyle Melton.
• Thinking of the numbers of women who struggled with the same or even greater challenges.
• Experiencing the amazing quote, “One decision does not define the Truth of who we are.”

Sharing my story with people who have earned the right to hear it is very new to me.  I am able to do so largely due to the work of Dr. Brene Brown, whose book was a catalyst for this time of healing in my life.  Thank you for your life-changing work on vulnerability and shame, Dr. Brown! (I highly recommend her books to anyone dealing with situations similar to mine)

Sharing my story is amazing because trust is not something that comes naturally to anyone who has experienced any kind of abuse. In the beginning, I shared “tag lines” but never went deep into my story…until now.  And I decided to share in spite of the fact that my spouse often encouraged me to “let the past be the past.”  In truth, this is an issue of the heart and soul that needs to be revisited and honored, not ignored.

I wish I could tell you that I have achieved some level of clarity on the issues of sexual abuse and abortion.  Both are difficult topics to examine and I don’t intend to make them any kind of personal platform.  Instead, I am leaning toward the hope that regardless of what happens next, I can look at my story through a variety of lenses and feel less shame and judgment.  I have found that only by adding energetic and spiritual healing practices have I been able to find a deeper level of healing on all levels.  Perhaps sharing my story will help another person do the same.

I know that I am who I am based on my experiences.  I have experienced difficulty, I have the support of wonderful friends and I’m in a relationship with a strong, supportive spouse.  I have known the joy of parenthood and I am blessed in many ways.  And now, with every cell in my being I thank you for honoring my story by reading it and hope that it blesses you, as well.

For more inspiration, please peruse other selections from our Inspirational Stories category.   Thank you for visiting!

Today we share part two of our three-part saga about overcoming loneliness and shame to embody spiritual strength and authenticity.  The topics discussed in chapter two are very personal and reveal the devastating challenges of experiencing sex before one is truly ready.  The author’s name has been changed for privacy but she bravely relates her journey of self-acceptance and love in her own voice.  And now, chapter two of “Christie’s Secret becomes Self-forgiveness…”

My ability to keep a secret started when I was a very young girl.  A teen aged male coaxed me into his bedroom and had me perform sexual acts on him.  Decades later, my older brother confirmed in a difficult but much-needed discussion that he had had similar experiences with the same young male.    For some time I used this knowledge to mask my own pain, thinking that same-sex abuse had to be worse, so what did I have to complain about?  As much as I wish this to be the end of the story, it isn’t.

As a fourteen-year-old I was out with a group of friends and there was a boy there who I had shown an interest in.  We talked, he kissed me and the downward spiral began.  Although I said “No!” it was neither heard nor respected.  I didn’t fight hard enough for myself and I lost my virginity in that overwhelming and frightening experience.  I remember the intense physical discomfort that I felt for several days.  Who could possibly enjoy this “grown-up” sex?  I thought it was awful.  Some of my friends who were there did not believe me when I told them what happened.  One of the boys present took my side, but for all the wrong reasons…

Fast-forward two years and I met the young man I mentioned earlier who said all the right things, was very nice to look at and was inspired by my athletic ability.  He was the first “man” that I wanted to be with.  We didn’t have sex often; nonetheless in the surreal experience I already described, I got pregnant.  In my mind, honor roll students didn’t get pregnant; high achievers didn’t get pregnant; varsity letter winners didn’t get pregnant.  And young women who desperately wanted to please their parents, teachers, families, friends–literally anyone who would give them positive attention–most definitely didn’t get pregnant.

I didn’t know another person who had ever experienced what I was going through.  Sure, I had relatives who had gotten married because they were pregnant, but they were “much older” than me, at least 19 or 20!  (Two of the three are still married to this day.)  It may sound crazy that the difference of only 2-3 years was a big deal to me then, but it feels like a big difference at that time in your life.  I did not have it in me to become a mother or have a baby put up for adoption.

What I didn’t know at the time of making my decision was how difficult seemingly innocuous conversations would be in the future.  I felt ice in my veins when I had to:

• Quiet the stories in my head when abortion was discussed in political debates, overheard in “random” conversations, seen on billboards and  bumper stickers or highlighted in movies like “Dirty Dancing.” Regardless of the medium, I interpreted it as, “If you’ve had an abortion, you are going to burn in hell.”  So many layers of shame and self-judgment appeared out of nowhere to plaster the walls of my own private hell.
• I was horrified upon hearing a dear friend (who didn’t have knowledge of my story) say, “The only people who will burn in hell are the women who kill their babies with abortion.” This was especially painful given my Catholic upbringing.
• I was paralyzed by the trauma of having to tell my parents about my pregnancy because the man I was planning my future with (the father), threatened to tell them if I didn’t.
• I was frozen by paranoia when the next man I dated long-term innocently remarked that I had “child-bearing hips.” I silently obsessed, “Really?  Is it that obvious that I’ve been pregnant?”
• I was overwhelmed by guilt and shame when I heard stories of people who invested energy in the grueling processes of adoption or in-vitro fertilization.

Thank goodness for my spiritual practice!  For as I journey and grow, I am recognizing that these experiences were exactly what my soul needed in order to learn…

Please stay tuned in the coming weeks for the final chapter of “Christie’s Secret becomes Self-forgiveness.”  Simply click to “follow” our blog! 

As we approach the holiday season, I am honored to share another true story of healing and renewal. This is the saga of a woman who overcame loneliness and shame to embody spiritual strength and authenticity.  Regardless of your opinion of the topics discussed herein, I invite you to witness the power of a soul courageously sharing her story in the hopes that others may feel encouraged and supported.  The author’s name has been changed for privacy but she bravely relates her journey of self-acceptance and love in her own voice.  Here is Chapter One of Christie’s story…

My intention for sharing this story is for my own healing.  Over the years I have built a number of walls and defenses in order to hide and I now wish for a deeper, authentic connection with myself and others.  Not only have I feared people judging me but I have also spent years judging myself.  Judgment has not helped me.  After hearing several times that I needed to develop “thick skin,” I convinced myself that if I could just be a little more self-critical it would help me.  It didn’t work.  Now I am peeling away the layers and inviting you to bear witness to my story.

At age 17 during my junior year in high school, I found myself taking a pregnancy test in my bedroom.  My boyfriend had bought the test and brought it to me before school one day.  I was too scared to buy one myself.  Who might see me and what would they think?  The results were not easy to read.  This was well before the easier  +/-  tests that appear on a stick today.

I remember holding my test-tube up and comparing what I saw with the information on the instructions.  It was confusing and I was already deep in denial.  I told my boyfriend that it was negative.  I didn’t tell him about not really understanding what the test showed and that deep down, I already knew the answer.

A few weeks later we went to Planned Parenthood and had another test.  I was pregnant.  The woman who helped me told me that I had “lots of options.”  Yet there was only one option in my mind and in my boyfriend’s mind, too; I could not have the baby.  Although she said very little, I could feel the employee’s disappointment in my stubbornness.

I scheduled an appointment to have an abortion.  One of the things that I remember is completing the paperwork at the clinic and reading on their waiver that I “could not hold the doctors, nurses, staff, etc. responsible for any psychological challenges that I may face later in life.”  I didn’t know what “psychological” meant so I asked the person at the desk.  She quipped something along the lines of, “It means that when you are 35 and sitting in a counselor’s office, you can’t hold this place responsible.”

Although I was dealing with an unplanned pregnancy one of the things that I repeatedly heard from my parents, teachers and employers was my ability to deal with responsibility.  I was conscientious to a fault; so I thought this wouldn’t be a problem.

When you are doing difficult things, it is hard to understand or even begin to perceive how a decision will impact your future.  As a young woman, I simply wanted to move ahead and put this behind me.  I was convinced that I was with a boy who loved me and wanted a future with me.   One of the hit songs at the time was Jefferson Starship’s, “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now” and it became an anthem for me.

I was already picturing our wedding, the place where we would live and how our life would look together.  If we could make it through this, we could do anything.  It would be our secret. But what he didn’t know was that I was already really good at keeping secrets.  And I probably don’t need to tell you that I was wrong about our plans for the future…

Please stay tuned in the coming weeks for the next chapter of “Christie’s Secret becomes Self-forgiveness.”  Simply click to “follow” our blog! 

This week we conclude our three-part saga about healing one’s body, mind and life.  What you are about to read is a true story, recounted with the permission of the woman who lived it whose name has been changed for privacy.  If you have not read chapters one and two, I encourage you to take in the inspiring story of a courageous person who would not let the past dictate her future.  And now, the conclusion of “Laura’s Hope for Healing…”

I think by anyone’s standards Laura’s story is an impressive one: A courageous woman has the fortitude to heal herself of an agonizing illness, effectively putting an end to generations of emotional anguish and physical torment.  But the story doesn’t stop there–not even close–because as it happens, Laura was not the only one in her family needing a new relationship with her body.

As Laura faithfully crafted a balanced life day by careful day, healing Energy began to expand outward like ripples on a pond, first saving the life of her oldest son and later bringing healing to her son’s relationship with his father.

When Laura was a young woman and had found out she was pregnant, she had been delighted.  But when she learned her first child would be a boy, she was relieved in a much deeper way.  All during her pregnancy she had prayed for a son; she was sure if she had a girl she would pass her eating disorder on to her child.  After discovering the baby’s gender she thought, “I won’t even have to pay attention to all those issues…” but things were just a little more complicated than that.

You see, when Laura was a little girl herself, she was starved for safety and security.  She used to love going to a special friend’s house after school just so she could get hugs from the girl’s nurturing mother.  A woman with an ample bosom and an even bigger heart, this kindhearted mother kept Laura well-supplied with warm hugs, tasty treats and a sense of emotional stability.  Her friend’s house was the only place she felt accepted unconditionally, and she vowed that her children would never have to go elsewhere to find that kind of love.

Laura’s desire to provide an accepting, loving household was a priority as her son grew older.  But it was not long until it became clear something was wrong.  At an early age, her son began snacking as a form of self-soothing.  His small habit soon turned into compulsive overeating, but Laura was determined that he should never be deprived.

Haunted by visions of her mother spitting food into the sink and her own ordeals with self-starvation, Laura maintained an accepting attitude regarding all her son did.  Only later did she realize that this also meant she had not established any healthy boundaries, either.

As her son got heavier, Laura fell deep into denial.  It turns out watching someone else gain weight is a lot like gaining it yourself: It tends to creep up on you and it is not something anyone likes to admit.  Indeed, many of Laura’s friends chose not to mention her son’s appearance out of a sense of compassionate social decorum.

What’s more, Laura herself could not see her son’s condition any more clearly than she could see her own.  It turns out the skewed perception she had of her own body made it likewise impossible to see others’ bodies clearly, a common side-effect of eating disorders.

Because of this distorted perception and the silence surrounding her son’s health, Laura lived in silent guilt.  She soon had two more children and found it necessary to attend to their needs, as well.  Her son continued his compulsive overeating and by the time I met her, Laura’s son had become dangerously obese.

Both Laura and her son lived in a kind of mental prison, each hiding dark secrets about body image and food.  But when Laura began working with me and healing herself in earnest, she was also able to slowly begin tackling those very same issues with her son.  As she began dismantling her lifelong eating disorder, Laura gained the courage and understanding necessary to help her son address his own addiction to food.  In the face of their combined love for one another, the bars of unworthiness, guilt and shame could no longer hold them in.

During the summer of 2010 Laura scheduled her son to meet with a panel of health consultants to determine her son’s need for bariatric surgery.  The doctors agreed that it was the best option for him and Laura and her son began the long process of getting him scheduled for the procedure.  But not everyone was convinced that surgery was the best way forward.

Laura’s ex-husband was opposed to the procedure from the start.  Her son’s father had struggled with admitting the boy’s condition almost as much as she had and now that surgery was in his future his dad stalled out.  With what she later described as the fierceness of a lioness protecting her cub, Laura recalled one particularly daunting evening when she went to her ex-husband’s house and laid it all on the line.  If she had to take out a second mortgage on her house she would, she vowed, “but our son is having that surgery.”

Laura’s determination helped inspire her apathetic ex-husband, who finally got behind her efforts to get their son get the medical attention he needed.  The pain of facing his son’s condition faded into an inspiration to help find him the best possible care.  Not long after his surgery, their son joyfully began his life again and entered college.  Though they do not live together under one roof, this group of souls has journeyed together from resistance into redemption–all because one woman had the courage to face her own Truth.

Nearly five years after our first phone call, Laura is now savoring the most joyful time in her life.  I knew Laura had healed herself when she told me about her annual spine curvature measurement, which monitors the condition that brought us together so many years ago.  Initially, doctors had told her to expect a more deformed lower back as she aged.  The most optimistic goal, they had said was to hope that the progression of the curve would someday begin to slow.

Recently, Laura informed me that she had just returned from another spine curvature evaluation with her chiropractor.  As always, the degree of the bump was given a numerical value, but this time the tests did not show her back curvature slowing or even stopping.  Instead, her numerical assessment revealed that her spinal curve had actually reversed itself.

The doctor noted that he and the other chiropractors he had consulted with had never seen such results.  To see skeletal material shift in reverse was unheard of—until now.  At her most recent check-up, her spinal curvature had gone from the original 44 degrees of curve to an astonishing 40.  “To clarify,” he said, “your bones are…straightening themselves.”  Even her loyal massage therapist said that Laura now has a healthier back than most people she works on every day.

Laura’s tenacity, courage and power have won me over as an admirer and friend.  Now free of an eating disorder she thought she would never live without, Laura is a dynamic example of health and empowerment to her three children.  She lives each day to the fullest and delights in being able to just lie in the sun and read a book, free of the anxiety and fear that used to rule her life.

Laura continues to surge toward freedom in her body, heart and mind.  Every time we talk, she reminds me that we can each be a ripple of change and that there’s no telling who our lives will inspire next.  Just look who Laura’s story touched today…

For more inspiration, please peruse other selections from our Inspirational Stories category.   Thank you for visiting!

Today we begin chapter two in a three-part saga about healing one’s body, mind and life.  What you are about to read is a true story, recounted with the permission of the woman who lived it whose name has been changed for privacy.  If you have not read chapter one, I encourage you to take in the inspiring story of a courageous person who would not let the past dictate her future.  And now, Chapter two of “Laura’s Hope for Healing…”

My heart felt sickened as I heard the story of a young woman deprived of her joy.  Laura had become a slave to her eating disorder.  As she told her story, the Divine Insight of the Guides came into perfect focus.

It always takes a bit of courage to share theories with people when I receive direction from the Guides.  But I sensed that Laura had trusted me in revealing some very intimate history, and I felt that at the very least she deserved a chance to hear the Truth.  What happened next would change Laura’s life forever, and start us on a Journey to unraveling the most mysterious case of body-mind-spirit connection I had ever encountered…

As gently as possible, I told Laura what I had experienced during our sessions.  I started by explaining the gift of clairaudience, which allows a person to hear the words the Angels speak to him or her.  I shared that during our first week together I had been told Laura’s condition was energetically rooted and that I had later sensed it was connected to the way she was using her body.

Was it just possible, I asked Laura, that she had deformed her body through her hatred of it?  Could it be that she had been forcibly willing her belly to go “back, back, back” for so long that her spine had finally bulged outward in a desperate attempt to obey?  Understanding that every cell in the body is known to have intelligence, to be able to read the intention of the brain, was it possible that her spine had tried to acquiesce to the point of deformation?

Laura was stunned.  She had never put the two together before and a new light of awareness dawned in her eyes.  The expression she wore of fierce courage in the face of this new hypothesis spurned me on.

And what of the fact that she could still dance, I asked?  That high-impact form of exercise should have been eliminated far before walking, but still it held on.  I suggested that it was owing to the fact that every other form of exercise was known by her body to be a means of punishment and brutal manipulation.  Dancing was her only method of exercise born of sheer, joyful abandon and it seemed her body knew it.

Laura’s face lit up.  Based upon this new understanding, she speculated that perhaps what had been done by her mind to her body could be undone in the same fashion.  Maybe her mind’s attempt to force her body into an unrealistic ideal could be undone by attending to the root causes of fear and frustration.  In that moment, yoga suddenly found the fulfillment of its true purpose: to create healing in the body with the help of the mind and spirit—not in spite of them.

Together, Laura and I set about making a plan.  The goal was to begin sending healing vibrations to her spine.  At this point, Laura was living with chronic pain the doctors had said would be her lot for the rest of her life.  She had been given an arsenal of pills to manage the searing sensations she lived with every day and I asked her to continue taking her medicine as usual.

However, I also asked Laura to have a daily conversation with her body, telling her back’s pain receptors that it was safe to go “off-duty.”  Let the pain response know it can turn off now, I recommended.  Thank your body for its wisdom and warning, but tell it that you have heard the alarm and are attending to the emergency.

The following week Laura was beaming.  She told me she had been able to reduce her pain medications by almost half in just one week, finding her back hurt much less throughout the day.  We continued sending the signals to the pain system and added communication to the actual muscles around her bump.

The visualization was to be one of an ice cream cone slowly melting away.  Once a day, Laura committed to visualizing her bump softening, smoothing out and becoming even with the other side of her back.  Her visualization practice was over when she could see clearly imagine the right and left sides of her back looking exactly the same.

With astonishing success, Laura began miraculously healing her body of the ravages of pain.  In addition to her yoga and visualizations, Laura had begun working with a chiropractor who supported her mind/body approach and gave her hope that she could lead a life not consumed by pain.  They began meeting on a regular basis and with the combined methodologies, Laura began to see even greater results.  Her medication was now used only weekly and her back muscles were beginning to stretch and respond to her daily yoga routine.

A month later we decided to implement the final level of imagery, which was to visualize Laura’s spinal column itself straightening into healthy alignment.  Instead of taking a jog to the right below her waist, Laura imagined it being slowly pulled into a perfectly straight line before her very eyes.  I asked her to visualize her spine straightening three times in a row before concluding and simply going on about her day.

The results were miraculous.  Week after week, Laura was gaining ground.  The pain and other medications prescribed for her back had been formally removed by her doctor.  She was able to sit in a car without pain and even take a bike ride for the first time in years.

The rest of her body was improving, too.  What were once black and painful-looking toes battered from merciless exercise were now polished and healthy.  She had clearly stopped abusing her body and her entire Energy was changing because of it.

I think by anyone’s standards Laura’s story is an impressive one: A courageous woman has the fortitude to heal herself of an agonizing illness, effectively putting an end to generations of emotional anguish and physical torment.  But the story doesn’t stop there–not even close.  Because as it happens, Laura was not the only one in her family needing a new relationship with her body.

As Laura faithfully crafted a balanced life day by careful day, healing Energy began to expand outward like ripples on a pond, first saving the life of her oldest son and later bringing healing to her son’s relationship with his father.

Who knew one woman’s courage could do so much for so many?

Please stay tuned in the coming weeks for the final chapter of “Laura’s Hope for Healing.”  Simply click to follow our blog!

This month we are focusing on relationships: the relationships we have with our loved ones, our Inner Spirit, our bodies.  It seems like the perfect time then for me to relate a story I have been longing to share for the past few years.  The three-chapter saga you are about to read is a true story, recounted with the permission of the woman who lived it whose name has been changed for privacy.  When I asked if she would allow me to share her ascent from hell into vibrant health, she didn’t hesitate for a minute.  “Sure,” she said, “as long as you think it would help somebody else…” 

Help?  Indeed, I have a number of students who have heard only parts of Laura’s story whose lives will never be the same.  So Laura, thank you for your courage in sharing your story.  I celebrate your undying tenacity to heal yourself–today more than ever.

The first time I heard Laura’s voice it was straining through the other end of the phone.  She was telling me of an unusual spinal deformity which had made traditional exercise increasingly painful for her.  Laura had never attended one of my yoga studio’s classes but had heard of me through a mutual friend and felt a private session might be the answer.  We scheduled a time to meet and planned to work together for an hour each week to see if yoga could help heal her.

My first impressions of Laura were of a bright, vibrant woman in her late 40’s, full of vigor and positive Energy.  At our first meeting, she told me that her back condition had not been a life-long burden.  Somewhere in her mid-40’s she had begun to experience searing back pain that made her favorite pastime of running impossible.  The sensation was like that of a searing-hot curling iron on her lower back every time she exercised or had to sit in a car when her job called her out of town–which it often did.

It was subsequently discovered that Laura’s lower back had inexplicably begun to bulge and curve, creating a significant bump.  Doctors had been consulted, specialists enlisted, yet no one could find a cause for her spontaneous deformity.  They labeled it adult idiopathic scoliosis which indicated a curvature of the spine with no discernible cause.

Slowly the condition had grown worse, depriving Laura of the pleasures of biking and eventually even walking for more than ten minutes at a time.  The only thing that was left, she told me, was her current outlet of dancing.  She would put on her favorite music, close the blinds at home and dance her heart out as a method of keeping her cardiovascular system healthy.  The fact that only this more joyful form of exertion proved to be painless was indeed significant, I discovered later.

My initial session with Laura went well and we adjourned with plans to meet again the following week.  As I collected my things and closed the door to the yoga studio something about our session nagged at me.  As usual, my work with Laura had centered not only on the physical but had also included a general awareness of her personal Energy.  I sensed that her outgoing, positive exterior was only one level of a rather complex and sensitive spirit.

But there were other things, too.  Laura’s feet were bruised and included a number of blackened toenails.  Her midsection was gaunt and bony, her arms and legs lacking in muscle tone.  More than anything else, though, was the undeniable pronouncement my Spirit Guides had immediately planted in my heart: Laura’s condition, They had said, was entirely energetic.

Rather than jump on this information too soon, I bided my time through another session before solidifying my hypothesis.  I looked for ways Laura’s Energy might be informing her body’s condition.  From one exercise to another I tried to read her vibration more carefully, sensing into every move she made and every word she said.  And then, through the grace of Divine Intervention, it hit me.

We were standing up and breathing, imagining taking in life force and expelling it out again consciously.  As I watched Laura breathe, something in her midsection caught my eye.  Instead of breathing into her belly and filling her middle like a balloon, she was lifting her ribcage and sucking her stomach back every time she inhaled.  I casually pointed this out and asked her to try it again, encouraging her to puff her belly out like an expectant mother when she inhaled.  She tried it, but with very little success.  Her body, it seemed, would simply not perform the movement.

I asked her more about this breath style.  Had she ever taken a singing lesson or breathing class that talked about diaphragmatic breathing?   No, Laura replied, and what’s more she had never consciously taken a breath that pushed out her belly in her life.  Not to calm herself, not to release stress, I asked?  Shyly, she lowered her gaze and murmured again, “No…”

As she left that day, the Guides led me farther along the path to insight.  To my amazement, They told me that Laura had caused the deformity herself.  I could sense the Guides were indicating that something about the way she was using her body had caused her back to bow out of alignment. In my mind, They kept replaying the moment when I had discovered Laura’s difficulty taking a deep breath into her belly.  Still, I was stumped and could not make out how there could be a connection between breathing and what Laura referred to as her “bump.”

The following week I was feeling a bit desperate for insight.  Nothing we were doing with yoga seemed to help Laura’s condition or her pain.  Many movements were altogether impossible to manage without discomfort and we ended up having to modify even the simplest stretches for her use.  Still the cause eluded me, until Laura herself unwittingly supplied the missing piece.

During our third session together, we worked again on the belly-breathing technique.  Laura was struggling significantly, unable to get her abdominal muscles to relax even after many moments of lying down and resting on the floor.  As in our last session, I pointed out that the movement was similar to distending one’s belly like a pregnant woman, and that’s when she began to laugh.

Laura snorted and said that the last thing she ever thought she would be doing was attempting to make her belly look bigger!  She tried to keep her voice light as she began to talk about years of “sucking in her gut” to make her midsection look as flat and skinny as possible.  I was surprised to hear this powerful woman in the prime of her life talking about her body like a teenage girl in the middle of a self-image crisis.  In a light and conversational way, I asked her to share with me what that image was about for her.  With disarming honesty and heart-wrenching vulnerability, Laura honored me with the private story of her own personal hell.

Unbeknownst to me, Laura had been a lifelong anorexic and bulimic.  She grew up with a mother who was a beauty pageant queen and was grooming her two daughters to follow in her footsteps.  As children, Laura and her sister had eaten dinner at the kitchen table while their mother ate standing over the kitchen sink.  From there, the anorexic mother would chew and then spit each bite of food into the garbage disposal rather than swallow it.  Laura was raised to believe that the only thing others valued in a young lady was physical beauty.  Her mother taught her that a skinny figure would guarantee others’ loyalty and friendship.  From an early age it seemed Laura was destined to have an eating disorder.

Yet, that was not all.  Laura’s father was a man struggling with manic depression at a time when such conditions were all but unknown in mainstream society.  The instability of never knowing what state of mind her father would be in when she saw him made her years at home nearly unbearable.  She lived a life of paralyzing uncertainty which resulted in battles with anxiety for years to come.

Laura and her younger sister grew up exercising viciously and competing over which girl could stay the skinniest.  Controlling their intake of food seemed to be the only thing they could control in their unpredictable lives.  When Laura began college, she maintained her merciless exercise regime to avoid gaining weight as her blooming body matured.  As it happened, even Laura’s grandmother was anorexic.

My heart felt sickened as I heard the story of a young woman deprived of her joy.  On and on into her adulthood Laura had continued to torture her body.  She told me of how she would take her children to the local recreation center—not to play with them, but to put them in the childcare room while she exercised for hours a day.  Laura had become a slave to her eating disorder.  As she told her story, the Divine Insight of the Guides came into perfect focus.

It always takes a bit of courage to share theories with people when I receive direction from the Guides.  But I sensed that Laura had trusted me in revealing some very intimate history, and I felt that at the very least she deserved a chance to hear the Truth.  What happened next would change Laura’s life forever, and start us on a Journey to unraveling the most mysterious case of body-mind-spirit connection I had ever encountered…

Please stay tuned in the coming weeks for chapter 2 of “Laura’s Hope for Healing.”  Simply click to follow our blog!