From Kheyala (long)

[Guest guest]

Dear Friends,

A lot has happened internally since my last post and it has been hard

to put it into words, especially when strong feelings and thinking

are present. For some reason, I am up in the middle of the night and

want to send this out Right Now.

Below are some excerpts from recent letters I have read and responded

to. Please, if there is anybody out there who has been following

this story of abuse and would benefit from a few selected beautiful,

wise, incredibly supportive and inspiring e-mails I have received

recently that have helped confirm to me that there is no reason AT

ALL to sit and miserably kill oneself in the bottom of the dark,

ugly, torture chamber of one's own mind, please write to me. I have

asked permission from the various authors to share their words for

the benefit of others and have gotten approvals across the board. We

are all in this together! Isn't that Marvelous?!

Love, Peace, and Deep Rest to All,

Kheyala

<snip>

> What if...>> ...the thoughts you are having right now> about

yourself> and your relationship with your children> are the same

thoughts> had by the one> who taught you how to think that way> to

begin with?>

YEAH!You know, the night after I wrote that letter to Mira I could not

sleep at ALL. I was up for hours, kind of peacefully, actually, just

listening to everybody breathe. Then a question that Christiana

recently bounced off of me spontaneously arose. The thought that had

been on the burner was the "Sometimes I hate myself so much that I

wish I were dead" one, and the question was "Who's eyes are you

looking through?" Then, it was one of those great moments when

everything comes clear. I knew that my mother thought she hated me

so much she wished I was dead, and also that she thought she hated

herself so much she wished she was dead. It could probably be traced

back and back and back.I woke Jim up. For the first time...well, it

felt like the first time... I saw without any haze at all that I was

treated cruelly day in, day out, while I was at home in the presence

my mother. No one else indicated that they were conscious of how

ugly it was, and I'm guessing that everybody outside of our house

just assumed that because my parents were upstanding, educated, and

upper-middle class citizens and their kids were so clean and

well-dressed and well-behaved that everything was groovy. To this

day, there is not a single person in that family, or a neighbor, or a

teacher, that has ever come close to validating my experience.

Thankfully, though, since that night when the haze cleared up, I am

seeing that I no longer need it to be validated by anyone else. The

fact that I have had that mantra in my head all my life, even if it

was laying dormant for stretches of time, is all the proof I need

that I'm not just crazy (which is certainly another belief that was

handed down to me).When the haze got cleared up, do you know what

happened? I was a frigging, walking explosion. It was like any

friction at all: ANY... even someone innocently touching my sleeve,

sent fireworks going in every direction. At one point I yelled out,

"I feel like a volcano going off and all I see is red and all I can do

is yell because I don't know what else to do!" In the intensity of it

all, I'd forgotten about our cool punching bag and the screaming

pillow and the great outdoors with its vast sky that can make even my

biggest, hugest life expressions appear so infinitesimal, they are

nothing.Anyway, I caught on, Jim caught on, and Ananda caught on.

When everybody, including me, stops and gives me the critical space

that I need when I feel the slightest heat of the lava coming forth,

it's no problem.

This is from another letter:

<snip>

I had received a bunch of feedback that encouraged me to nurture my

"inner-child" and stuff like that and I found it to be quite

confusing... but then somehow I noticed that Ananda IS my younger

self, in that I am treating her with the same attitudes I am treating

myself with. So now I am learning that when I am being especially

attentive to her, particularly in the circumstances in which I had been

mistreated, we are both healed at once. Even though it has been rather

unpleasant re-living vivid and intense-feeling flashbacks during the

most benign circumstances with my little

girl (for instance: "Mommy, I am hungwy."), I am grateful because it

sure fuels my resolve to be a different kind of parent.

Here is one last excerpt from a letter to a group of people:

<snip>

I am so grateful for your sharing with me. There is something really

powerful I feel when I become aware without a doubt that we all are

with each other in this Life, in this moment......this sense of unity

makes me feel that we can overcome anything together, that we are

strong together, that whatever appears to separate and tear apart

just disintegrates instantly in this one beingness that we are which

enables us to feel everything in and with one another as if it's our

own.....that even the grief looks like a blessing when it throws us

back again and again into this one embrace......