How did you spend the last year preparing for this year’s birthday? Same old, same old? Just getting by? At some point, it will catch up with you, and you will have to open the wounds, reframe the stories, and forgive your inner child and yourself. Why not do it for your next birthday?
Who I was a year ago and who I am today, a year later, are very different. I have evolved, and my soul has learned many of the lessons it seeks to know through this lifetime. I still have the same physical body, even though that has changed. I’ve spent this past year discovering and healing who I am. I’ve exposed my wounds, opened them so they could drain, and begin healing from the inside out – our bodies are intricately designed to heal on their own naturally. But somewhere along the way, we were taught to put a “dressing, a band-aid” on them, to cover them up, hide them from the world, and not let anyone see who we were.
I succeeded at that for 72 years. There were so many wounds I just covered up and went on living. We were conditioned as children to do just that—to cover them up and make up stories on how we got them so as not to bring blame or shame.
I have always thought we are all equal: What I do for, or to, another, I do for myself. Always seek a reason to be kind; pay it forward – even if it is only with a smile. Don’t judge another – you haven’t walked in their shoes or heard their stories. Unless they have opened their wounds, they are still hiding from themselves. Instead, offer them a safe, non-judgmental space to tell their stories—the beginning of healing.
In my fifth book, When Spirits Speak: Stories are Born (2022), I wrote most of my life’s happy stories I remembered. The next one I write may contain all the wounds, the ugly stories I’ve lived along the way. Why? Why would I write about those stories? So that you, the reader, can feel safe enough to open your wounds and heal the inner child that lives inside of you. The one who has taken on all the wounds and covered them up all these years to keep you safe.
It has been a long year, and I’ve worked with some amazing teachers. I’m blessed and grateful to them, even some of you, my friends, who have unknowingly challenged me to rethink and look at instances differently. Whether or not I have the opportunity to tell you “thank you” personally, know that you, too, have made a difference in my life.
I have often found healing in the sayings accompanying pictures. I share them with you in case you, too, need their healing words. We are all struggling, whether we acknowledge it or not. No one’s life is perfect. We have just learned to cover our wounds better than the next one.
As I look forward to beginning my 73rd trip around the sun, I offer you the gifts of healing I have learned:
• Open the wound(s) safely with someone you trust. Expose all the ragged edges. Search deep into the crevices – then expose them to the light;
When you learn to reframe a wound and its story and look at it in a new light, you might find that what you thought something meant, had taken and lived with for many years in a negative light, really wasn’t what it meant. Maybe they were giving you permission to go and live your life to its fullest, to find my best life ever. Isn’t that what every parent or step-parent should want for their child?
I’ve spent 55 years hating my stepfather for something he said before marrying my mother seven years after my father’s death. My stepfather passed away three days before my birthday (September 20th) in 2015. I’m sorry I didn’t have the opportunity to tell him I finally understood what he meant that day in 1968 – “I no longer needed to be responsible for my mother.” I thought he was saying I was no longer needed and throwing me out of MY family. I’m sorry; now that the wound is open and healing, I couldn’t give him the chance to be the father I lost at age ten. He was only telling me to go live my best life ever.
I’ve opened all the wounds I know about in this and all timelines, exposing them to the light, love, and forgiveness. Finally, my magnificently created body can do what it does best – heal itself without the need for band-aids or cover-ups. After 72 years, I have laid my stories, stories I have told myself and others, to rest. I have released them to the ethers in imaginary balloons to float high into the sky so they do no harm to Mother Earth and her children – for we are those children, just now in adult bodies. Our spirits still carry the memories of the child who found magic in the new world in which it was born.
Seek the magic; Do No Harm; Do Right. We are all equal: One planet, one race, one ancestry, one destiny. Recognize and honor the divine energy that exists in all living things…
Those are the words, my gifts to you, that I leave with you on this, my birthday. A day in which I celebrate my rebirth, another year wiser. It has been a long year of painful memories and stories, but they heal now. Any stragglers that may surface later on are now able to open themselves on their own to heal.
It’s time to write again, for I am a writer and a healer, an old soul with a spiritualist/creator soul path. My mission in this lifetime is healing with words, words often brought forth from the sages of times itself – our past, present, and future lives. I can’t wait to see what this next trip holds and the many discoveries it will reveal. Happy birthday to me and to you!
How many of you have thought about your ancestors? How many generations back have you researched? I can go back 10 generations, and then it gets muddy.
The salty wind whipped through my hair and the rhythmic crash of waves against the shore were the lullabies of my childhood.
Looking back at my life this time, I realized that my dream had come true. I was working with Native American children and sharing my passion and skills with them. I was making a difference in their lives, and they were making a difference in mine.
Chino Valley, Arizona
info@whenspiritsspeak.com