When people ask me about the most challenging part of my healing journey, I always return to the same answer: healing relationships. It's profound to learn how healing relationships with those who hurt us most can become the key to our freedom. Today, in honor of Child Abuse Prevention Month, I want to share the deepest chapters of transforming my relationship with my grandfather. He was the man who first sexually abused me when I was just five years old. Healing this relationship shows what's possible when we're willing to go beyond traditional approaches to trauma recovery.
The Foundation of My Wall
My grandfather didn't just abuse me. He chained me to the foundation of a wall that I would spend the next 45 years building around myself. This wall became my fortress, protecting me from further harm but also preventing me from experiencing genuine love and connection. Understanding how to approach healing relationships with family members who caused such deep wounds would become central to my entire recovery journey.
As I write in my book Becoming an Empowered Survivor, “Everything to this point, evolving my thinking about my grandfather, was enough to heal. This is where things got really weird as my thinking continued to evolve and still does.”
The path of healing relationships began with the most basic step: acknowledging what had happened and its impact on my life. What I discovered through years of intentional work was that this relationship would require me to explore realms I never expected. From traditional childhood trauma therapy to spiritual encounters that challenged everything I thought I knew about forgiveness and healing.
Chapter One: Facing the Predatory Eyes Through Trauma Therapy
My first breakthrough came through EMDR therapy with my trauma therapist, Monica. This form of childhood trauma therapy proved essential for addressing the memories I had suppressed for decades. For years, I had buried the memory of my grandfather's predatory eyes. The way he would look at me like prey when I was staying with my grandparents during college.
During our intense EMDR sessions, I had to face those eyes head-on. The work was terrifying, but eventually, my mind released its fear. The image transformed from something menacing into googly eyes spinning around crazily. A change that still amuses me today. This transformation marked my first step in reclaiming power from someone who had held it over me for decades.
The Power of Specialized Therapy
For anyone beginning their own trauma recovery journey, I cannot emphasize enough the importance of finding the right therapist. Just as my healing required specialized expertise in childhood trauma therapy, your journey deserves someone who truly understands the unique impact of early abuse on our development and capacity for healing relationships throughout our lives.
Chapter Two: Understanding the Survivor in My Abuser
One of the most radical shifts in my healing came when I began to see my grandfather not just as my abuser, but as a wounded human being suffering under the weight of his own experiences. Through studying complex trauma patterns, I recognized that he was part of a generational healing crisis that had been passed down through our family line.
This realization didn't excuse his behavior or minimize my pain. Instead, it allowed me to begin finding grace and acceptance so I could finally let him go. I started to understand that hurt people hurt people. My grandfather was likely perpetuating cycles of abuse that had been inflicted upon him.
This perspective shift was crucial for my healing relationships work because it moved me from a place of powerless victimhood to empowered understanding. I could begin to separate his actions from my worth, his pain from my identity.
Chapter Three: The Spiritual Breakthrough Through Energy Work
The most profound moment in healing relationships with my abuser came during a reiki healing session years after I'd completed traditional therapy. During this energy work, my five-year-old inner child appeared in my mind. She led me through an open-air building toward a playground filled with joyful children.
But in this sea of playing children, I was drawn to a little boy sitting alone in a corner, slumped and facing away from the activity. When he turned to look at me, I gasped with recognition. It was my grandfather as a five-year-old child.
His eyes, so different from the predatory stare I remembered, were soft, innocent, and full of love. In that moment, I understood that his soul wanted me to see him as he was before trauma shaped him into the man who would hurt me. I felt his unspoken remorse. Not just for abusing me, but for the wall of unhealthy survivorship his actions would cause me to build.
Inner Child Work: A Gateway to Profound Healing
This spiritual healing encounter illustrates the power of inner child work in trauma recovery. When we can connect with both our wounded inner child and recognize the wounded child in those who hurt us, we create space for a different kind of healing. One that doesn't require the other person's participation or even their presence in our lives.
Chapter Four: The Request for Forgiveness
The final phase of this forgiveness journey occurred during another childhood trauma therapy session. My grandfather's spirit appeared and demanded forgiveness in his characteristic gruff manner. Without hesitation, I looked at him and said, “No.”
But then he asked a different question: “Can you let the balloon go?” He was referring to a balloon from my original hypnotherapy session. This was a symbolic container holding our family karma. The generational patterns of abuse I was meant to break.
To this question, I could answer yes. I watched the balloon float away, carrying with it the ancestral patterns that had caused so much pain across generations.
Breaking Generational Cycles
This experience taught me that sometimes healing relationships isn't about forgiveness in the traditional sense. Sometimes it's about releasing ourselves and future generations from patterns that no longer serve us. As a sexual abuse survivor doing generational healing work, I've learned that we can break cycles without absolving those who caused the original wounds.
The Signs of Spiritual Release
Following this release, I experienced a beautiful confirmation during a weekend trip to the Texas Hill Country. White dragonflies surrounded me. When I researched their spiritual meaning. I discovered that seeing a white dragonfly often means “an ancestor who has passed on is trying to reach out to you. The purity of the color signals that the pain and suffering they endured are gone.”
This message confirmed what I had intuitively known. By releasing the balloon of family karma, I had not only freed myself but had somehow freed his spirit as well through this profound spiritual healing experience.
Actionable Steps for Your Own Healing Journey
If you're working on healing relationships with family members who caused you harm, here are the key insights from my journey:
1. Start with Traditional Childhood Trauma Therapy: Find a therapist specialized in childhood sexual abuse healing. EMDR, internal family systems, and somatic therapies can be particularly effective for processing early trauma and beginning the work of healing relationships.
2. Explore Your Inner Child: Connect with the wounded parts of yourself through meditation, therapy, or energy work. Understanding your inner child's needs creates space for authentic healing and transformation.
3. Consider Spiritual and Energy Healing: Don't overlook modalities like reiki healing, meditation, or other spiritual practices. Some of my most profound breakthroughs in trauma recovery came through these approaches.4. Redefine Your Forgiveness Journey: You don't have to forgive to heal. Focus on releasing what no longer serves you rather than absolving those who caused harm.
The Ongoing Journey of Healing Relationships
Today, my grandfather has little hold on me. The hurt may never completely disappear. But, I've healed the relationship sufficiently so it no longer constrains me from knowing love. This transformation didn't happen overnight. It took years of dedicated work using multiple healing modalities, from traditional childhood trauma therapy to reiki healing and inner child work.
What I've learned is that healing relationships with abusive family members is possible. Even when they're no longer alive to participate in the process. In fact, sometimes their absence creates space for the deep spiritual healing work that wouldn't be possible otherwise.
Your trauma recovery journey may look different from mine, but know this: you have the power to reclaim your life from those who wounded you. Whether through traditional therapy, spiritual practices, or a combination of approaches, healing is always possible.
As a sexual abuse survivor who has walked this path, I want you to know that the work of generational healing, breaking cycles of abuse and trauma, is some of the most important work we can do. Not just for ourselves but for future generations.
If you're ready to begin or deepen your own forgiveness journey and healing relationships work, I invite you to explore the resources available on my website. Remember, you don't have to walk this path alone – there are communities, therapists, and healers ready to support you every step of the way.
To learn more about my complete healing story, you can find my book “Becoming an Empowered Survivor”. For crisis support, please contact RAINN's National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).