Memories, Musings, and Mystics
Galina Coffey-Lewis
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Published by Galina Coffey-Lewis at Smashwords
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Copyright 2010 Galina Coffey-Lewis
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
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Copyright 2010 Galina Coffey-Lewis.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author.
Cover Design and Book Layout — SpicaBookDesign www.spicabookdesign.com
To Jim, My beloved husband, friend, lover, soul mate. I love you now and forever.
Galina
This book has been written as a gift to all who read it. Please feel free to share it with others. I would be delighted if church groups or support groups used it for their benefit.
I would appreciate hearing from you and how the book may have helped or supported your life. Just e-mail me at jglewis@telus.net.
I have learned through the years that real truth has no price tag, and is offered freely to all who sincerely seek it.
Thanks, Galina Coffey- Lewis
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Writing this book has been a real pleasure for me. one of the reasons is because in writing the book I realized I needed the help of my friends. Asking for that help was actually an important learning for me because, as you will discover in the book, I grew up thinking I had to do everything myself and that others would not be there for me. I now know this is not true, and the rallying of my friends was wonderful during this time and proved to me once again that there is support for all of us in the universe, and that the universe is welcoming to each of us. I would like to thank the following friends and family who helped me be able to produce this book:
to Jim, my husband, whom I love dearly and thank for his constant love and support in all of our life endeavours, I dedicate this book.
Dr. Susan Geary — for reading and helping in proofreading the manuscript while she was busy with many other projects both in her personal and professional life. I love you Susan.
Dr. Lorraine Clemes — for being the first person to read the first draft and encouraging me to continue with my writing and sharing of my life and learnings. thank you Lorraine. we have been friends for a long, long time and I cherish you.
Wyley Powell — for reading the manuscript carefully and making important suggestions and for his support and friendship through many years. Wyley was busy with his translation work, but found the time to help me with the manuscript. He is a well-known translator of French into English and has translated thousands of important documents for a varied clientele. I appreciate him finding the time to help me.
Lynda Augustus — for being the first person to help me get back on the computer after my absence of several years. Lynda also helped me feel less intimidated about my computer skills and encouraged me to continue my learning.
Grant Augustus — for coming over to our apartment on several occasions to rescue me from mistakes on computers and for his tremendous knowledge about grammar and appropriate terminology in writing.
Dre Lavack — my friend and computer wizard who was always patient with me and taught me so much, and gave me the confidence to try to learn about computers again. His sense of humour always made me laugh and helped me learn to be less serious and worried about my computer learnings. He has been totally available to me during this writing process, and even when tired from his own work, spent hours with me to help me complete the manuscript correctly. Dre has been my confidant and friend and I value him so much and tremendously appreciate him.
Elaine and Patsy, my sisters — thank you for the friendship and fun we have had the last few years travelling and reuniting with each other.
Also, I want to thank Iryna Spica who designed the cover and each page in this book. Her extraordinary creativity made this book beautiful. She understood the concepts I wanted in the book and made many decorative patterns for us to choose from. Her sense of design is wonderful, and her insight and listening for the essence of what we are trying to convey in this book was really wonderful. She was a joy to work with, and I feel happy about our results.
And, to Ray Leibl, who will always remain in my heart. Ray gave me back my life many years ago and, although we are distant by miles, Ray remains in my heart now and forever. I am deeply honoured that he wrote the Foreword to this book.
Thank you. Galina Coffey- Lewis
FOREWORD
In Memories, Musings and Mystics, Galina Coffey-Lewis tenderly considers our conscious human processes always founded on experiences of her own human nature, gently and humbly conveyed. It is easy to read, totally makes sense, and I agree with every word. Its mind is the essence of every humanitarian philosophy. Its body is every action that joins us in similarity of need and ability. Its soul is the spirit of acceptance of what exists, and of the support of life. Her book is a guide towards living a sacred existence on this earth, which I often believe is paradise. while reading I encountered places where I feel fragile and in a process. Here with me was Galina, taking me through her parallel experience confidently, touchingly and shamelessly. I found myself more excited about understanding my own injury, and with more confidence about taking action that heals. thank you for having been my student and for continuing to be my teacher.
Ray Leibl, MD, MRCPsych July 11, 2010. Toronto, Ontario
TABLE OF CONTENTS
A FEW DEFINITIONS AS WE GET STARTED
MY FIRST NUDGE FOR WRITING AND SHARING
NAKEDNESS AND THE HEALING OF SHAME
FIVE DAILY SPIRITUAL PRACTICES
BREATHING AND HEALING PRACTICE
LIFE: A PARADOX OF JOYS AND CONCERNS
CHRISTMAS JOURNAL A TIME OF TRANSFORMATION
THE UNIVERSE KNOWS YOUR ADDRESS
WELCOME
Hello friends. well, here I am again thinking about writing and expressing some of my thoughts, memories, and insights after not writing for seven years. when I completed the last book, Healing Thoughts for Wounded Hearts, I felt I was finished with writing. However, in the last few months I have begun to feel that nudge deep within to begin to write and express myself again.
In this book, I want to share with you some of my favourite stories, memories and thoughts from all of the previous research and work I have done over the years dealing with psychological and spiritual growth. Also, I want to share my continuing life journey.
This book is not in chronological order but rather the themes of my life are woven together in an interdependent manner. many of the thoughts and short stories as well as reflective insights written in prose will be able to stand alone, meaning they are complete within themselves. At your leisure you can just open and read a short section in the book and have a thought or a moment of reflection from that reading. I hope you will enjoy this book as I share some experiences and reflections that have been meaningful to me during my life. Also, I hope that a thought or a story will touch you in some way and give you comfort or inspiration in some aspect of your life. this is not a book on what I have done but rather what I have learned and experienced and worked on to make a meaningful part of my life.
I am going to leave a lot of space between thoughts and stories so that you can meditate or ponder on what you have read, and if any words are helpful make them your own. I will use a symbol
to indicate space or a breathing time for you to take in what you have read. my writing is rather concentrated and I think you may need time to read and reflect on what you have read or forget what does not resonate with you. Also, I am leaving space in the margins for you to write your thoughts if you wish. my desire is that we will journey together and although I write in the first person I very much want you to be included in my story.
A FEW DEFINITIONS AS WE GET STARTED
MEMORIES
Sharing some memories with you will include my recollections, feelings and remembrances of events in my life often with a glimpse of my thoughts of meanings related to the subject. they are memories as I recall them and stories that I love from my life. However, the outer events I explore seem less important than the meanings I find behind the story. memories and meanings are interwoven into the tapestry of my life and often interconnect in interesting ways.
MUSINGS
I know that to muse is to ponder, meditate, be lost in thought. I would like to share with you musings I have had about my life and about meaning in life. I hope you won’t mind. Do you ever ruminate about life, your personal life path, and the purpose of it all? Do you ever contemplate the meaning of life and your part in this life journey? I do this a lot, and although I am not clear on lots of things, in looking back over my life I feel I have become just a little wiser in these mature years, less impulsive, and hopefully, more compassionate.
MYSTICS
A mystic according to Webster’s Universal Dictionary and Thesaurus is one who seeks and finds direct knowledge of God or spiritual truths by self-surrender. mystical means having a meaning beyond normal understanding and mysticism includes belief in a reality accessible by intuition, not the intellect. 1 I have searched for mystics my entire adult life and read and studied many, sometimes with mixed emotional reactions which I will share as we continue in this book. I will focus only on the mystics I feel a connection to and with whom I have some affinity, emotionally or spiritually.
Please forgive any musings that may repeat similar themes, but my life has been a circle of interdependencies between the psychological and spiritual and therefore similar ideas emerge again and again. my life path has not been a straight line, but rather a path with lots of curves, ups and downs, detours, and sometimes emergence into a deeper level of living and understanding. my life has been one of increasing expanding circles, making space for more people, love, joy, sorrow and compassion. I invite you to share with me my journey while considering your own, and find that mystical part of all of us that lies deep within the secret chambers of our hearts.
Let’s begin our journey now.
MY FIRST NUDGE FOR WRITING AND SHARING
My first nudge for writing was an experience I remember quite well. I was a teenager, about fifteen or sixteen and I was walking down a street in Dallas, Texas. I passed a Christian bookstore and in the window was a daily devotional book that I felt attracted to. I went into the store and in looking through the pages I had a deep insight, and the thought came to me that ‘I could write a book like this.’ I was so shocked at that thought that I scared myself and put the book down and immediately left the store, but that memory has stayed with me for over fifty years. Little did I know at that time that I would write six or more books in my lifetime and that the major themes would be of finding healing, meaning and purpose in life as well as finding the Divine connections within myself. From that early time on until now, I have pondered and reflected upon many things in life — the events themselves, the mysteries of life, the psychological shadow, and how our early stories affect our life and ways we view the world. I have spent most of my life integrating and weaving the psychological, the spiritual, and emotional into the tapestry of my life.
WHERE’S MY YELLOW PAPER?
In all past books, I wrote them on yellow lined paper from the business store. my first book was written in Santa Fe, New Mexico, many years ago. I had hundreds of pages on this yellow lined paper and had stacks of themes of the book all over the very small two-room house we lived in. of course, I had no copy of the material. Unfortunately, the typist I was using to type the manuscript from those long, yellow legal-sized sheets of paper left town quite unexpectedly, and when my husband and I went to pick up the material she was gone and so were my hundreds of sheets of yellow paper.
We raced up the mountain in our little Volkswagen to a small village where a neighbour had said she thought the lady had moved to, and after a frightening drive going up curved mountain narrow roads, we found the typist and my precious yellow paper. Believe me, after that I made copies of everything I wrote and put them in safety boxes so that I would never lose a manuscript again. this was before the computer age and all the wonderful ways we write now.
But, about the yellow paper: I loved that yellow paper and writing longhand on those sheets. even in graduate school I wrote my thesis on yellow lined paper. when we retired and I cleaned out my office (eight years ago) the only thing I felt sad about was throwing out stacks and stacks of yellow paper.
So, where is my yellow paper now? I will just pretend this is yellow lined paper.
Dancing in all its forms cannot be excluded from the curriculum of all noble education; dancing with the feet, with ideas, with words, and one must be able to dance with the pen.
FRIEDRICK NIETZSCHE
The role of the writer is not to say what we all can say but what we are unable to say.
ANAIS NIN
Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
And to Wordsworth (quote above) I say “Yes.”
THE 1967 WAR
I went to Gaza in the middle east when I was a young graduate in nursing. At that time the space for the Palestinians to live in was about 30 miles. Now, unfortunately it is much less. oh, how I loved those people! So different from me in many ways in terms of culture, beliefs, clothing, but their hearts were so big and so gracious. How they have lived in that space now for nearly fifty years with only the minimum life requirements breaks my heart. I am glad that the world is beginning to see and understand the plight of these people.
I was caught up in the first of many wars there — the 1967 war. And yes, I remember the first bombs that were launched over Gaza and the hospital where I worked, and I remember that it was not Palestinians who had the bombs. with great distress I was evacuated from there by the Canadian United Nations troops and flown elsewhere as the war began. I don’t remember where; then we went by a freighter boat to Cypress. It was an unbelievable, terrible trip. I had constant diarrhea and no change of clothes with me, so imagine the mess and the smell. we ended up at the American University in Beirut where we slept on the ground and at night time watched the bombings and heard the sounds of bombs all around us. the brilliant colours are still vividly in my mind: orange, red and yellow sparkles all over the sky. even now, over forty years later I cannot stand to go to or hear events with firecrackers sparkling in the sky. In my mind, I am instantly back in Beirut. I still have post-traumatic memories over these few days in my life. I left so many friends in Gaza and I still feel very sad about it to this day. I think some are still there, never having had the opportunity to leave, to visit other places. they have remained totally stranded for a lifetime in that parched earth hardly inhabitable for people. Just imagine their condition now forty years later.
An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.
MAHATMA GANDHI
FAITH AND DOUBT
It was during my time in the middle east that I first began to doubt the basic beliefs I had been brought up with — that of evangelical Christianity and the belief that others needed to be saved and that the only way was through Jesus Christ. In the middle east, I met many muslims who had great faith and love and compassion and wisdom. I am not talking about the radicals in that faith. At that time, I never met anyone with those characteristics. After my return to the United States, I began to study other religions and have continued to do so to this day. my horizons have been so widened that I now wonder how I could ever have thought that my way was the only way. As Sri Ramakrishna says, “there are many paths that lead to God.” He said, “...it is the same God toward whom all are directing their steps, though along different paths. the substance is one under different names, and everyone is seeking the same substance; only climate, temperament, and name create differences. Let each man follow his own path. If he sincerely and ardently wishes to know God, peace be unto him! He will surely realize Him.” 2 Jesus never said He was the only way — that is our interpretation. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the Life”, and I now have a deeper understanding of that statement. It refers to the Christ Consciousness within a person or that deep state of prayer and meditation wherein one feels union with God. God may be called by many names but all ultimately refer to the same God or Divine Consciousness or Holy Spirit or Christ, which is interestingly very close to the Hindu word Krishna. Swami Lokeswarananda, whom I write about in more detail later, said that in the higher planes of understanding and consciousness, all is the same. the bickering of lower levels of understanding has caused much suffering in this world — needless suffering.
I studied Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Sikhism and with that opening of my mind and heart, I now truly realize that all paths are good, and how arrogant and ignorant I was in those days to think my path was the only right path. the Dalai Lama says, “we have enough religions. enough religions but not real human beings... Don’t talk too much of religion. Let us talk of what is human. Love is human. kindness is human. everyone needs love and kindness.” 3 Studying his life, it is clear that he has prayed and meditated at very deep levels, so for him to make such a simple statement is profound.
I have been privileged to have holy people from nearly all faiths in our home — including devout Christians, Swami’s from the Hindu religion, Buddhist devotees, a muslim Imam and Jewish friends. many have said prayers and offerings to God in their own way and with great sincerity.
I wonder how much better the world could be if we just listened to one another and respected other people’s ideologies.
Never quarrel about religion. All quarrels and disputes concerning religion simply show that spirituality is not present. Religious quarrels are always on the husks.
Show by your lives that religion does not mean names or sects, but it means spiritual realization.
VIVEKANANADA
As different rivers, taking their start from different mountains, running crooked or straight, all come and mingle their waters in the ocean, so the different sects, all come and mingle different points of view, at last all come to Thee. 4
THE POWER OF THE OPPOSITES
Sometimes when we are stuck in some aspect of life, a helpful tool is to examine what the opposite of that issue is. Let me give you an example. when I was in graduate school and working on my thesis, a man who was a religious teacher was in our program. He was studying renewal in the Church. He was having trouble getting his thoughts around this topic when a fellow member of his learning group asked him what the opposite of renewal would be to him. He replied doubt. the learning group suggested he study that topic for a while, and indeed he did. From his study on doubt came a greater faith, but with personal change. His life was transformed and led to many new learnings and life changes for him. Diving deeper into the unknown this person found a whole new and renewed way of being.
Life is a spectrum of opposites. Here are some of the polarities. there is no light without dark, joy without some sorrow. there is good and bad, hungry and full, birth and death, happy and sad, feeling full or empty, giving and receiving, independence and dependence, giving and receiving, acknowledging and ignoring, perhaps even faith and doubt. they are all a part of the whole and you really can’t have one without the other. Also, to deny one part without giving proper attention to the other causes us to be imbalanced in some way. only when we can accept both polarities and try to consciously integrate them into our psyche do we find peace in our lives. Some want to believe that life is only good and see only good everywhere. Yes, lean toward the good but there is much in this life that is not good and in some cases real evil is there. to embrace only one aspect makes us lopsided. And yet, to embrace only the negative about everything in life is not so helpful either. It seems to be a balancing act of dancing with the shadows, of accepting that which may not appeal to us about ourselves and others. However, it is in that paradox that our humanness lies. I guess it means to own our doubts as well as our faith, to accept our weaknesses and not have to appear strong only, and through the dance of opposites we find a new way to be and live in a better space. through loving our life questions and having the courage to see what emerges, the mystery of our life begins to unfold and we discover new and hidden beauties, and strengths in ourselves that perhaps we didn’t know we had.
Rilke, the poet, said it this way:
Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books written in a foreign language. Do not now look for the answers. They cannot now be given to you because you could not live them. It is a question of experiencing everything. At present you need to live the question. Perhaps you will gradually, without even noticing it, find yourself experiencing the answer, some distant day. 5
GALINA’S MUSINGS
WEAVING THE TAPESTRY
What we appear to be may not be all we are
Let us learn to see
the knots in the tapestry of our life
As well as the outside
cover
what we see on the surface is only a small part of
who
we are
Look beyond the surface to the underneath arrangement
Into the threads of our lives with many different textures,
colours, and patterns
Then, we can all weave together the
real tapestry of our
humanness.
THE DANCE OF LIFE
I took a summer course in California on expressive Arts therapy. It was a wonderful course where we used various art modalities to express our feelings, work with symbolic images and gain insight into certain issues in our lives. we painted, we drew, we did sand paintings, we sang, we danced, we wrote in our journals and wrote poetry. It was a special learning experience for me. towards the end of the course a new group of students were coming to the same place and were introduced to us. the group of us who had been in the course were tired and physically and emotionally drained. we had been doing our inner development work for several weeks and we were getting ready for closure and preparing to go home.
The new group arriving were full of energy and vibrancy and ready to become immersed in the program. we were all in a big room and dancing and dancing and dancing. the energy in the room was incredible. At the beginning of the dance, my group was dancing in the centre of the room and the newcomers were more on less on the fringes of the group. As the dance progressed, we were getting more and more exhausted, and the new group was feeling just great and not tired at all. Slowly and unconsciously we moved from the centre of the group to the outside and the new group became the centre. Rhythm was never broken and some were playing the drums and not a beat was missed. I found myself on the outside circle of people and eventually sat down and then just clapped my hands in rhythm to the music. then I just patted my foot in rhythm, yet the entire group of newcomers and the older group continued to stay in rhythm with one another and eventually slowed down and the music and dancing stopped in their own time. the tremendous learning for me and for others in my group was that at times in our life we are the centre of activity, energy and action and at other times we must let go and let others take over the central work while we provide support to the process. It was a dynamic whole process requiring all of us, but we changed our role as our energy changed. How to let go and let others lead? that was a hard one for me as I had always had lots of energy and was central to change in the organization in which I worked. As I have aged I have become more comfortable with this process and now in later life I am quite happy to let others do most of the work while I provide support, a rhythm and a blending with the process. this experience to me was a metaphor about the dance of life, of rhythms and flow, of energy, of rest and of fading into a rhythm yet remaining part of the dance of life. We change, yet the dance continues.
Without
music, life would be a mistake...
I would only believe in a God
who knew how to dance.
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE
Dance is the hidden language of the soul.
MARTHA GRAHAM
Let us
read and let us dance —
two amusements that will never do any
harm to the world.
VOLTAIRE
NAKEDNESS AND THE HEALING OF SHAME
I love the pictures of Krishna and the little Gopis in Indian culture. I have always been attracted to these pictures and stories. one story I just love that helped me tremendously in the healing process is the following:
Lord Krishna, a revered, enlightened religious figure in India, was also very playful when he was a boy. He played his flute calling people back to God. His followers, female cow herders, were called Gopis and they loved Krishna. they would be ecstatic when near Him. they loved to laugh and play in the meadow near the bank of the river. one day the little Gopis were bathing in the river, and Lord Krishna went to the bank of the river and hid their clothes. when the Gopis emerged from the water, they couldn’t find their clothes and they were very upset. they asked Lord Krishna, “why have you taken our clothes?” and Krishna replied, “through taking your clothes, the last part of shame is removed from you.” You have no need for clothes, as you have no shame. Central to Krishna’s teaching was the fact that you can never know God with shame in your life. So, he had removed their shame and symbolically shown this by hiding their clothes.
I love this story. Have you ever seen a little child running around naked, happy and laughing and playing with no thought of being uncovered, but rather totally open to the world. I am not advocating going naked in the world in a physical way, but in a symbolic way. when we are without shame we can be seen in the world as we truly are. we have no need to hide anything, and there is a kind of openness and nakedness about us that makes us have a vulnerability, a sensitivity that is very appealing to others. Have you ever met someone like that? I have and it is wonderful to meet them. there is nothing hidden, no secrets, and all the human emotions are integrated into their lives. they understand and accept all of life, and most of all they accept themselves as they are, fully and unconditionally. You feel safe with a person like this. they have true freedom.
Sri Ramakrishna, my beloved teacher, said that a person could not realize God when there are traces of shame, hatred and fear. 6
Emotional healing occurs when we no longer have anything to hide. when we have faced our shame, our insecurities, our anger, our feeling of inadequacy, our fears, or our longing for love and acceptance, we become less covered with layers of false insecurity. we begin to show our true nature to ourselves and the world. only then can we find the Divine Spark hidden in the depths of our being. this is one of the reasons I so much believe in the power of appropriate psychological therapy to deal with emotional problems. Until we have enough ego strength through appropriate therapy we cannot lose the ego and its various defenses. thus, Krishna symbolically showed the Gopis that all shame was removed and they could be seen as they really were in the world, shameless and without fear.
THE DIVINE SPARK
This idea of the Divine Spark within is a concept I love and gravitated to in my spiritual search. each of us has this Divine Spark, but it is hidden so deeply in the heart that I had to do in-depth psychological work before I could find that spark within. Some people perhaps are lucky enough to be born knowing that they are Divine, beloved and beautiful. others of us have had to uncover many layers of hurt to find that elusive but most desirable spark.
Vivekananda in his writings speaks of the Divine Spark of God within us and this spark is in the centre of our hearts just waiting to burn more brightly. Meister Eckhart speaks often of there being something Divine in the soul, a spark which is never quenched even when we try to ignore it or cover it up. this spark longs to be recognized and has no limits, because the spark is the Divine within us.
This spark is the Divine, God, in whatever form or name a person gives to the Divine, and is longing to be in our heart of hearts burning with the eternal flame of love and compassion. Eckhart speaks of this Divine Spark being hidden, yet in our core we are Divine. Eckhart says we make contact with this Divine Spark by emptying ourselves or letting go or sinking into that ground of being, which is the spark of God. 7
Whoever possesses God in their being, has him in a Divine manner, and he shines out to them in all things; for them all things taste of God and in things it is God’s image that they see...
Go out of yourself and let God be God in you.
In every human soul there is something of the nature of God. Here it is that soul meets God.
MEISTER ECKHART
There is a candle in your heart,
ready to be kindled. There is a void in your soul,
ready to be filled. You feel it, don’t you? You feel the separation
from the Beloved. Invite Him to fill you up, embrace the fire.
RUMI
THE VOICE
It is interesting that sometimes those things we don’t like about ourselves are the things that others really like. For instance, some people don’t like the way they look, or their body parts or their hair. For me, I have had discomfort around my Southern accent for most of my life. Having lived in Canada for most of my adult life, I have had to deal with people’s ignorance and insensitivity around my accent. Countless hundreds of times complete strangers ask me where I am from and then make fun of the Southern accent, or even acquaintances like to imitate my accent in jest. It has been hurtful through the years, and I have learned that people asking the question, “where are you from? or “what kind of accent is that?” really don’t want an answer to their question but rather a confirmation of their own prejudices. Few people take the time to get to know the real person beyond their voice, their bodies or the way they walk or look.
I am sharing this personal side of myself, however, to tell you about an incident that changed my perspective on this subject.
After my book Be Restored to Health was published I did a lot of radio and television work. one New Year’s Day I was being interviewed on national radio about the book and I enjoyed the process, but was wary about how my voice would sound over the radio. A few days later I received a phone call from the producer of the show asking if I would object to a copy of the radio interview being given to a man who had come into the radio station and told them the following story.
His daughter had been the victim of a sexual attack and although she had received some counselling, she had been staying in her darkened bedroom for several months. She would not come out to eat and she was in quite a depressed state and was refusing any help. on the day of my radio interview the radio was on in their kitchen, and as my voice was heard over the radio, the daughter appeared in the kitchen and said, “where is that voice coming from? I must hear and touch that voice.” the family was flabbergasted at this, and then watched as the daughter went to the radio and held it while I was speaking on the radio program. She told her family she must have a tape of that voice so she could listen to it over and over. She told her father that there was something healing in that voice. the father appeared at the radio station in tears asking for a copy of the program. they were calling me for permission to give a tape of the interview. of course, I agreed and then I was able to make a few suggestions about appropriate help for the girl. I understand she did listen to the tape over and over for a long period of time and she did get professional help after that.
I was amazed, shocked and quite humbled by this incident. A part of me that I felt had so often been rejected, and which I disliked, was actually a healing instrument for someone in need. I had the great insight that my rejected part was a healing tool for someone else. our disowned parts may be a healing instrument for another person. From that experience I began to appreciate my voice, my uniqueness and to view it as a healing tool rather than something to be embarrassed about.
the aspects within ourselves that we consider our imperfections may be exactly what someone else likes about us.
Here is another true story. my husband throws pottery and makes beautiful vases, bowls, and the like. one of the vases he made was imperfect. It was rather an odd shape and didn’t stand quite properly. He was going to throw it away. But I loved that vase. It was so unusual and creative and when placed on the mantle in the living room was a focal point of beauty. I convinced him to let me keep it, and many people commented on how lovely it was. Again, what could be perceived as imperfect gave much pleasure to others. And so our unique qualities, our idiosyncrasies, our differences can give beauty in our lives. Learning to love our imperfections and the imperfections of others is a great gift.
THOUGHTS ON LONELINESS
I have felt lonely many times in my life. Having been raised in the southern USA and leaving at an early age, and having lived outside my cultural roots my entire adult life, I have struggled with belonging where I am. I feel more and more myself in these mature years. most of the time I feel that wherever I am — I belong. But honestly, I don’t think people coming from other cultures are ever fully accepted in another culture. Yes, I have many friends from other cultures and enjoy them, but upon observation I see that most family groups stay within their own culture and it is unusual to see real openness to others who are different. even in Canada where diversity is rich and wonderful and there is acceptance of all races, religions, sexual orientations, I notice that people still seek those like themselves — there is a comfort level that runs deep. But what happens to those of us who really don’t feel we belong in the place we were born and at times do not feel we belong where we are now? I can’t tell you the stereotypical responses I have had my entire life because I have a Southern accent. People make incorrect assumptions about my religion, my values, beliefs, etc. And it is hard to change opinions, and why should it be necessary? Few people during my life have taken the time and space to really get to know me, who I am, what I feel, what I value and believe — so there is a lonely spot in my life. In fairness, I must add that I have been fortunate to have several true, deep friends who know and love me just as I am. I think it is rare indeed to have these depths of friendships and I am grateful.