The Madwoman Telling Primal Healing Process
“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” Maya Angelou
The universe is made of stories, not of atoms. Muriel Ryker
“Every woman’s story is biblical.” Naomi Goldenberg, Changing of the Gods
“There was a time when you were not a slave, remember that. You walked alone, full of laughter, you bathed bare-bellied. You say have lost all recollection of it. Remember. You know how to avoid meeting a bear on the track. You know the winter fear when you hear the wolves gathering. But you can remain seated for hours in the tree-tops to await morning. You say there are no words to describe this time, you say it does not exist. But, remember. Make an effort, or invent that time again.” Monique Wittig, Les Gue’rillieres
Creativity
As children life is rapturous and terrifying. The child needs time, touch and attention. She/he needs to be held in the arms of the adult received with open arms, guided with solid boundaries, and permitted to express. She needs to dance, sing, draw, write poetry, skip, cry, laugh, be afraid, be sad, make friends, be alone, read, and talk to God. She needs to know she lives as apart of nature and the universe.
When we are young our parents are our gods, stars are angels, and clouds are our friends. The way children experience life is the creative doorway into our spirits and ingenuity. All great art comes from emotion and imaginative/inspiration that goes beyond thought, opinion and many times societal values. Great artists such as Frida Kahlo, Georgia O’Keefe, Pablo Picasso, Jackson Pollack; all great music; Beethoven, Mozart, Gershwin; great writing; Hemmingway, Fitzgerald, Anais Nin, great thinkers; Aristotle, Einstein, Gandhi, Mother Teresa are the heroes and heroines that have changed the way we view the world.
At a young age we are told what is right and what is wrong. Criticism and judgments is a way of teaching children to behave. Our culture and educational system discourages natural expression. Children who feel too much, move too much and express too much are mostly identified as a behavioral problem with ADD and are prescribed Ritalin. We are taught to think a feeling, not feel a feeling. Talk a problem through, not feel a problem. Find new answers through dead facts. We are told that our minds have all the wisdom and that our bodies are a bundle of evil temptations. In reality our body holds the deeper meaning of life’s purpose. Our bodies have to breathe, feel and express in order for our potential to be realized. If the child is not given the opportunity to express she will grow up and be an addict, an abuser; controlling and withholding expression, afraid of life and relationships.
Addiction
Addiction is a behavior that numbs our feelings and allows us to lie. We go numb in a trillion different ways and when we are quite young. Our culture encourages addiction through consumerism, evangelism and capitalism. As a result, we are collapsed, overwhelmed, depressed or attacking, judging and blaming others. Intimacy becomes a battle ground for power and we hurt the ones we love the most. That is why anti-depressants, thin and beautiful and obesity have become a way of life in America. Addiction bottles the rage, grief and terror we numb out in our daily lives. No one can have an authentic intimate relationship as long as they are caught in the loop of addiction and unexpressed feelings.
My Promise to Myself
I promise to stay. Along the way I forgot to Tell. I will Tell to heal. It is my choice and only mine to find my voice to Tell. It is my spiritual-creative divine right to Tell. I am alive, supported and able to stand in my own Telling. The Telling is my creative soul, reaching, touching, feeling—I connect and belong.
- The work is based in experience
The creative-spiritual process is not a thought system and cannot be accessed by analysis or arguments. It does not involve having to believe anything, and in fact it is helped by a kind of suspension of belief that allows one to simply be open to the process of unfolding. Definitions, interpretation while the actual experience is occurring limits the individual.
- The process is one of deep healing and growth
The process transcends intellectualization or any of the more familiar modes of inducing persons to change. The journeyer operates at a level not often reached ordinarily and since the work is conducted internally. The exploration, self-inquiry and witness of thoughts, feelings and behaviors are experiential as cause and effect. What caused this thinking and what is the affect in your daily life and world? This inquiry leads to the deeper trauma, addictions and codependency in your every day choices. Recovery is not an affirmation it is a life long process. Responding instead of reacting is the beginning of self-awareness and choice. Change happens in the moment. As you begin to identify the frozen past and how it shows up in the present, you begin to feel, express and perceive yourself in ways with new choices. Your inner child is the one being healed. You are growing her up to feel safe in your body again.
- Individual growth takes precedence over dogma
This takes you full circle back to number one and the understanding that arguments, ideas, concepts, theology, discussions of what is right or wrong, good or bad, fall in the face of that which causes a person growth. This helps to transform shame, judgment and criticism. It allows you to receive yourself with compassion, courage and unlimited creativity and expression. Advocacy, commitment, focus, persistence, practice and faith keep the individual on the path. At times the creative healing process seems irrational, out of control and non-linear. It feel fearful and anxious. This is where the deeper healing occurs, the deeper riches are hidden, the ability to create beyond limitation and in synchronicity with your authentic truth lives. The courage to take action with compassion holds the container for the fear that will emerge to stop you. Healing through creativity is a heroine’s journey. A mystery. Going into the story and finding the meaning, purpose and mission of your life is the most creative act of living.
- Acceptance
Acceptance is an active choice. Acceptance nurtures movement and growth. It brings the individual into the present, the now with what is happening in the body-mind-spirit. Judgment and shame is suspended with acceptance.
- Silence/Meditation
Meditation brings a person into a state of acceptance. Silence empowers the individual to go within It enables the person to notice the inconsistencies, the defenses, the resistance, discomfort in what is said, done and felt. The ability to notice oneself without judgment establishes a relationship between the heart and soul of the creative voice. To empty and strip away the voices that repress us and say NO to our expression can be witnessed in silence. To break through the wounded self is an emotional release that allows for full, uncensored expression.
- Catharsis
Denial, an emotional numbing serves to protect the individual from painful memory and experience. Catharsis is the healing release of deeply held emotions that get blocked in the body and paralyze us from moving toward our dreams, expression and intimacy. Creative catharsis, an active emotional release through voice and movement…with a non-judgmental witness—and releases the fear response into a joy response.
“Catharsis provides a model of healing which deals with those things which most disturbs us and which we least want to face. The hope that catharsis offers and which the millennial vision communicates is that there is a practical way to accomplish the ancient spiritual goal of creating light out of the very substance of darkness. This process maybe crucial to our physical and spiritual survival and continued ability to create.”
Work of Lamentation, Joshua Levitt, Parabola, Spring 1998
Personal transformation starts with delving into your family-of-origin patterning, including generational patterning. It starts with the wounded self: An intricate relationship with the lost child, dreams, complex trauma, abuse, addiction, PTSD, and any behaviors, feelings and beliefs that limit your well-being. This journey of going back to claim the magical child to partner with your passionate-creative dreams, is a coming home into the body (your container) to feel, tell and create from all that you are. Mending fragmented parts of yourself is a sensitive, vulnerable and courageous process.
Most of us have been traumatized in one way or another. This splits our psyche into sub-personalities that become our shadow; the parts we reject. We can never ignore or abandon our many selves. To heal, we need to intimately know all aspects of the self in order for the true SELF to emerge. Once you build the emotional endurance to hold the pain of unresolved trauma, the triggers that set off the pain, and the willingness to be honest, you will be able to embrace the fiery, juicy and messy living of life.
The transpersonal — so popular in today’s self-help culture — tends to overlook the personal and leap out of the body and into the mind/heavens, the positive, total happiness and peace. Cognitive therapy suggests that that if you change your beliefs/thoughts you change your behavior and thus yourself. This is a one dimensional approach to change. Behavior and thoughts are symptoms, not causes of your unhappiness.
To embrace a mere second of conscious aliveness you must sit, feel and listen to the sensations in the body, feel your feelings, and witness thoughts and behavior. Between the heartbeats of your feelings, thoughts and behavior you will find the unconditional love you yearn for. The story of your life is layered. Everything you were, are and will be is part and parcel of being you. It takes a warrior — unflinching courage and vulnerability to face all the pain and all the joy without judgment or shame.
The process takes faith and trust. Trust to put your faith into action and into yourself.
The process of healing is a commitment that cannot be broken. It is showing up for yourself to be yourself. This list below are the teachings and individuation processes that allow for greater depth, compassion, communication, intimacy and creativity.
Feeling
Expressing
Receiving
Time
Touch
Attention
Boundaries
Creativity
Family patterning
Generational belief
Mindfulness
Impeccability
Purpose
Passion
Self-Love
Daily practice of these processes is a ritual to keep you on track to support you in becoming whole again. Anything in life that we want takes focus, practice and commitment. Why then do we give, stop and resist the follow through to be creative, have long lasting relationships and support wellbeing?
Personal Work is an accelerated process. Shadow work, emotional expression-catharsis, mindfulness, tracking emotional energy and full disclosure is necessary in order to find your authenticity.
Transformation from a feminine perspective is a dimensional eclectic integration of
psychology, spirituality, metaphysics, mythology, mysticism and a pinch of magic that leads a person to personal revelation and cosmic awareness. In today’s world it is the healing process for the recovery of the lost parts of ourselves, emotionally, intellectually, spiritually, creatively, sexually and psychologically. It is an internal process of soul retrieval, inner peace, inner guidance and bliss. It is self-mastery. You are the guru.