On Monday April 23rd, my sister Carri, my friend Cali, and I went to a meeting where we experience Lani Kent’s Healing Expressions workshops she offers for people like me. Listening to Lani speak brought up many emotions and experiences to my mind. My mom died when I was 13, though she did not commit suicide, where she took pills, cut her wrist, shot herself. She still committed suicide by not taking care of herself properly and seeking medical help for her ailments. My mom neglected her physical, mental, spiritual, and emotional health and she gave up on life. I do not know what brought her to that choice. My sister Vickie and I have always had questions and no one seems to have the answers. This memory has not been in my mind for many years. My mom’s death affected me deeply. I am affected by how I am choosing to not lay down to my GPA disease. I am affected by how I interact with others in relationships. I treasure relationships deeply and find them valuable and am willing to communicate and do what is necessary to keep them even when they are toxic and destructive to my own wellbeing.
Lani had us all make collages and I made two of them. The collages I made provoke powerful insight into m story. Things that have been buried deep inside of my body. Apparently, I have buried feelings stemming from my rollercoaster childhood that I have not dealt with. They are layered in my body like the earths many layers. Buried are images, smells, trinkets from a life that I have lives that needs to be excavated with my archeological gear on and my pick axe to get to the root, the core of who I am. Could this be why my body developed the Vasculitis disease that I know have? This Vasculitis disease affects my voices box and perhaps it is time I used my voice for something other than a tool to say that I am okay, it does not matter. When in fact, I am not okay and yes, it does matter. For years I barely spoke about how I felt, what I wanted, what I needed. I just let myself be dictated to. I gave away my energy, time, and most of all many of the treasures that I have gained in my life. These people I allowed to take from me were in fact broken themselves. Fractured by their own woes in life. I am learning about boundaries and am starting to value who I am. I am sharing the collages I made on Monday night. They were profound to me. What do you see? Is it the same as what I see? As you can also tell Monday night brought up a lot of old baggage and that it is time to release it to God and forgive. I will be sharing it with Timothy on Friday. I am so glad that I am given opportunities to learn and explore and be present and real with me and everyone around me.