Faith’s Journey to Wholeness
My journey to wholeness: In my early 20’s I was married, not happy, empty on the inside and at times felt depressed, but I could never work out why. As a teenager I had been searching for a man to love me, but kept attracting men who seemed to abuse me. I needed their love and approval so much that I would tolerate abuse. I was looking for something or someone outside of me to make me feel valuable. It seemed the harder I tried, the more it elluded me.
Then one day I realised that I had to love and approve of myself, and that the answers to changing my life and finding happiness actually had to come from within me, instead of blaming or trying to control everyone else. It was like a true love affair began. I started looking within to examine why I was attracting these things. I realised that I was the common denominator. “What was I doing or believing?”
As a young child I had been raped by a neighbour. It was very traumatic and I disassociated myself from this memory and never spoke about it to anyone at the time. I suppressed the memory so deeply that I could not even remember it. Then at age 13 when attending church, I was sexually abused by older boys in the youth group. I left church thinking that Christians were a bunch of hypocrites. I thought “it’s in the past – so just move on”.
I was not aware of the impact that suppressing these emotions was having on me. All I know is that I was stressed, powerless and confused. Looking back, I can see that it affected my life profusely. It affected the way I related to men, how I parented, how I viewed myself, how I acted in public and how I perceived God. Pushing that stuff down did not help, all it did was allow me to carry all the pain and dysfunction inside me. This was having a hugely negative impact on my spiritual, mental, emotional and physical well-being, as well as all of my relationships. I re-established a relationship with a safe and loving God. With my spiritual connection and the help of counselling and Kinesiology, I was able to let the pain go, and establish new patterns, beliefs and ways of thinking and behaving. Eventually I became strong enough to walk away from damaging relationships, not by hating men or the church, but instead by learning to love myself and knowing my true value. I learnt that allowing people to abuse me was not good for me or them. But most importantly, I learnt that I mattered and was valuable, and that a loving God did not want me to be mistreated or to mistreat others.
As a result of these changes, I found peace within myself after years of carrying so much pain. As my internal views and beliefs changed, my outside world reflected these changes. I then met and married a very different man to those that that I used to attract. Although my husband is not perfect, (as no person is), he loves me perfectly and treats me like a princess and values me. The years of the abusive cycle have been cut away from me and I now experience mainly peace and serenity. Sure there are days where I struggle, I am still human, but my physical, emotional and spiritual health have dramatically improved and I now enjoy life and have a very loving and rewarding marriage.
Each person is responsible for their own healing journey, but by learning certain skills and tools, and having someone to encourage and support them, it makes their journey towards freedom so much easier.I recently taught a diploma of Counselling and a diploma of Community Services. I have also designed short courses teaching the skills and techniques that aided me in my recovery. My desire is to empower as many people as possible so they can also live a life of wholeness.
This is why I do what I do!