Reframing the Hardest Parts – My Healing Journey

I detailed my healing journey with my grandfather, who died in 1994, in prior writings in Becoming an Empowered Survivor (BCAES) and in a previous blog post. He was the first person who abused me, locking me at five years of age behind a wall that would grow to be 45 years thick and 45 years tall before I began my journey to break it down and free myself. When the time came to break it down, I was trapped behind my wall, alone and lonely. 

Phases of my Healing Journey

My relationship with my grandfather has been through 5 major phases, the first four of which are captured in my prior writings and summarized here. First was the abuse itself and then fearing him for years as his predatory eyes stalked me whenever I was physically in his presence. Then, as I worked to break down my wall, the first hurtful relationship I healed was with him—my first abuser. Through trauma therapy, I reframed those predatory eyes to toy googly eyes—as you might see on a stuffed animal—which took the fear of him out of me and allowed me to continue to progress in my healing.The third phase occurred while reading Radical Forgiveness (see Empowered Survivors Resources). The author asked me to accept that my soul is here for a specific purpose in this lifetime. I have accepted this because I know that my life’s purpose is to serve as a HEALing Mentor, which means that I had to endure my entire life before I healed, including having been abused by my grandfather, so that I would have a reason to take the beautiful and powerful healing journey that I have been on. I believed this before I read the book. But, the radical idea that the author asked me to believe is that if my soul is here doing its work, then there is nothing to forgive.

Yikes!! That IS wicked radical, I thought!

But, I got there, too, to acceptance of this radical idea.

Unhealthy Survivorship

The fourth phase had me see my grandfather’s humanity and the person he was underneath the weight of his unhealthy survivorship. During a Reiki session, I saw him as a little boy who, at five years old, was still filled with love and who could be in harmony with other human beings. I saw him before he was hurt and became the man I knew as a child. My phase two work resulted in me accepting and having grace for him as a survivor, just like me, through a concept I call mirroring. But seeing him as a young child, before he was hurt, was an extension of that because I saw his humanity before he became a survivor. 

Forgiveness

In the most recent and fifth phase of my relationship with my grandfather, he came to me during a trauma therapy session and asked me for forgiveness. My therapist and I were working with the youngest of my inner children, my five-year-old.  

In my mind, I was having a tea party as an adult with all three of my inner children (at ages five, eight, and seventeen). Just as we were beginning the tea party, my grandfather, the man I remember in reality, barged into my mind and asked me to forgive him in the same gruff manner that he would have had we been talking in person. 

“Forgive me!” he demanded as if I owed him that.  

I don’t believe in forgiving the unforgivable. However, I do believe in letting go of the negative feelings we carry that bind our hearts and prevent us from knowing true love. Because of my work to heal this relationship, I had no fear of him. So I looked at him and said, firmly and with conviction but calmly, “No.”

In BCAES, I write about a hypnotherapy session that was my gateway to my healing pathway. During the session, the reality of having been sexually abused by my grandfather became… my reality when I came back to conscious awareness. This event occurred between phases one and two of my relationship with him, as described above. 

Toward the end of the hypnotherapy session, in my subconscious awareness, I was in an epic battle to destroy a house with my grandfather trapped inside. It was also a battle to destroy my grandfather. But I was unsuccessful. As I fought the house, I put it inside a balloon that I tried unsuccessfully to pop. And despite trying other means of destroying the house—him inside—I was unsuccessful during the hypnotherapy session. 

When I told him “no” during my recent trauma therapy session, he replied, asking me, in a gentler, exhausted tone of voice, almost pleading, “Can you let the balloon go?” He was referring to the balloon I had fought in my hypnotherapy session. With him inside. With our family karma inside. 

Generational Karma

Our family karma is the generational, familial abuse that my soul is here to break the curse of. I know this because of my self-discovery work to understand who I Am and my life’s true purpose. I am the wounded healer and curse breaker for my family. So, when he asked me the question, I knew exactly what he was referring to.

I said, “Yes, I can do that.” Then, I let go of the balloon and watched it float away.

The following weekend, I was visiting friends in the Texas Hill Country. We spent a relaxing and enjoyable afternoon floating on the Guadalupe River. Dragonflies were everywhere and kept landing on me. Every time I go there, dragonflies are all around me, but I have now noticed that each time, a different color has a heavier concentration than the other colors of dragonflies. The first time, that weekend after I let the balloon go, the dragonflies were concentrated in white.

If you follow my work, you may know the significance of Dragonfly spirit in my life. It is no coincidence that Dragonfly is the symbol of Empowered Survivors. 

As I always do when I know the Universe has a message for me, I asked about the meaning of white Dragonfly that day. I performed a Google search asking for the meaning and read the very first entry that was returned. Because I intend to receive the message intended for me, I know it will be in the first search hit. I accept what is written and don’t look for alternative messages. 

This passage is extracted from the source I read that day: 

Seeing a white dragonfly could mean 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. It is also a reminder not to focus on the anguish and the suffering that surrounded their death but on the love and happy memories that you shared with them. Dragonfly Meaning and Symbolism: Facts, Myths and Messages (sparkous.com)

Of course, that was my message that day!! I understood that as part of healing my family karma, by letting go of the balloon, I had freed my grandfather of his pain and suffering. Although I don’t have any happy memories of him, I did see the love in his eyes as a child during that fourth phase Reiki session. And since this day, I have seen other signs that the anguish and suffering that he caused is leaving our family. 

Perhaps I’ll write about this in detail in the future.