Let Go. Return. Receive.

How do you enter into your Inner Room of Prayer-Beyond-Words?

Years ago, I began taking yoga classes. One of my adult daughters encouraged me. It turned out to be another piece to my embodiment and healing journey. Later, I trained to become a certified Hatha Yoga instructor.

Yoga is not simply about fitness or flexibility, though it is often sold as such here in the United States. It does benefit our physical body, yet at the heart of yoga is an embodied spiritual practice with great depth, nuance, and Mystery. As with Centering Prayer, I discovered yoga brought me into my body’s Inner Room… 

…that sacred place of Prayer-Beyond-Words.

As a beginning yoga student, I found myself crying during practices, not from pain or frustration but rather from grief. My yoga instructor normalized this, so I didn’t feel embarrassed. She explained how we might encounter emotions and/or trauma that may be frozen in our bodies. 

“Let the tears flow and release,” she gently coaxed. 

Listening to her cues as I attuned to my body, I found parts of myself I had not known. Pieces I had ignored and even abandoned. In that tender place, I also discovered Infinite Compassion.

Allowing the tears to flow, I centered my heart on the Divine as I sank into a bowing pose (asana), like Child’s Pose. In Fish Pose, I lifted and opened my heart towards the heavens, the Holy. Prayer Hands (Anjula Mudra) felt honoring. I loved the reverence I felt toward Spirit as I moved from asana to asana. More and more, I discovered that reverence inside myself too. 

Back then, the most challenging pose was Savasana, typically done at the end of class. This asana asks us to lie on our backs on our mat, allowing all we just did to integrate into our bodies. Here we settle and let go as best as we are able. 

It took me a long time to be able to let go and rest in Savasana. My mind would race, and my body didn’t want to relax. Over time, as I cultivated compassion and patience for myself and practiced breathwork and calming poses, my nervous system eventually began to trust. It let go bit by bit, and I was able to rest more and more.

Yoga became my rhythm of healing and devotion. 

One of my spiritual teachers, Dr. James Finely, often talked about going about our day in a “contemplative stance.” Without knowing it, this was what I had entered into with yoga. When we enter into our bodies, our Inner Rooms, we encounter the Divine within us. Moving through our day this way, as much as we are able, is a gift.

Bit by bit, healing happens as our default system is rewired. We may make meaning out of what’s happening, and over time, those stories shift and evolve. Sometimes they reframe completely. Sometimes we may not be able to articulate it. Soon we learn to let that go, too, simply trusting. 

Like Centering Prayer, meditation, chanting, and other contemplative practices, we begin with humility, knowing we are small yet important and compassionately loved by Source. We let our egos go, knowing it is not about the perfect pose. It’s not about doing the contemplative practice the ‘right way.’ Instead, we remind ourselves we are meeting Divine Presence again and again.

It’s a rhythm of rest and healing. 

Spiritual Director Caroline Oakes wrote about this rhythm in Jesus Christ’s ministry. She said: “When we notice Jesus’ times of spiritual renewal interspersed as they are throughout the arc of his ministry […] we begin to notice the definitive pattern in Jesus’ practice as a kind of flowing back-and-forth rhythm. There is a continual pausing to let go (what scholars call kenosis, or emptying) of egoic attachments, fear, judgment, or expectations and then a returning to the Divine Presence again and again.”

In our letting go, we return to the Divine. In our returning, we receive. This rhythm is a practice of deepening our soul’s awareness of and attunement with our body and our innermost essence, and the Divine within.

Let go.
Return.
Receive.

Beloved, we are invited into this rhythm within our bodies, our Inner Room of Prayer-Beyond-Words. 

Maybe we access it in a yoga class, maybe through Centering Prayer. Perhaps it’s while standing at the kitchen sink or kneeling in the fresh spring dirt. Maybe we find this rhythm in all these places. 

We are invited to let go, return, and receive like the rhythm of Christ, like the rhythm of our breath. 

Let go. Return. Receive.

#3 Our Deepest Wound Is Our Healing Work In The World: For Life AND Choice

*Trigger warning: my story includes rape. Take care of yourself.

My Rogue Sisters and I spent a couple hours together on a sunny spring day. We walked to a wildish park and settled upon a grassy knoll. We talked about our lives and what we are learning. We connected over our experiences as women and deeply listened to each other.

One Sister is a budding herbalist, learning the ancient art of plant medicine passed down from woman to woman through the generations. She told us about Cramp Bark, a plant used to help a woman carry her baby to term if she is having issues. She also mentioned, there are a myriad of plants used through the ages by women to cause a miscarriage, when the woman chooses to do so.

Through the centuries, women have been under the hierarchical control of men. This patriarchy necessitated women to find other ways to have agency over their very own bodies. My Herbalist Sister went on to tell us that during the enslavement of African Americans, the slave masters raped their female slaves. This was done, in part, to increase their “stock”, especially after the slave trade was officially outlawed. I’ve also read the slave master picked which male would impregnate which female, to create the best “stock” possible, just like animal husbandry.

Just sit with that for a few breaths…

Frequently, the impregnated, enslaved women would venture into the wild, to find the plant they needed to bring about a miscarriage. Of course they would. Why wouldn’t they? Their babies were not their own. Their babies would share the same fate as them. The slave masters were wise to this trick, so they would force the women to drink Cramp Bark to ensure the birth of their slave baby.

As I shared in this post, I was conceived by date rape.

None of the ancient plant medicine wisdom was available to my mother through her female line. I suppose it had been erased somewhere along the way. Abortion was not yet legal. My mother felt adoption was not right for her. She had no support from her parents other than to marry my father. Single mothers were not common then. That choice would have taken a lot of strength and confidence. Going against the social and Christian norms, was not possible for my mother. Above all, she was a good Christian girl. She was trained to obey her parents. The implicit message was that she was the guilty party. This burden laid heavily upon her shoulders.

Nothing happened to my father. No consequences came for his actions, except to get married. No other male stood up to him, as far as I know. No one reprimanded him for his actions. No one shamed him. No one confronted him. No one reported him to the police.

Not one “Christian man” did or said a damn thing about my father’s reprehensible behavior. Instead, he was rewarded for his behavior with my mother.

Just sit with that for a few breaths…

And here’s a little nugget from the Bible’s Old Testament, in the book of Deuteronomy 22:28-29, NIV: “28 If a man happens to meet a virgin who is not pledged to be married and rapes her and they are discovered, 29 he shall pay her father fifty shekels of silver. He must marry the young woman, for he has violated her. He can never divorce her as long as he lives.”

Where in the Bible does it say NOT to rape?

My mother’s rape was “discovered” because my mother was pregnant with me. As far as I know, my father did not pay my grandfather any money, but my grandfather did give my mother to him for marriage. My mother had no agency in the family and Christian sub-culture of her time.

Misogyny: the dislike of, contempt for, or ingrained prejudice against women.

Patriarchy: a system of society or government where men hold the power and women are largely excluded from it.

Both brought trauma and harm, which has rippled out through the generations. Shaping my mother’s life. Shaping my life.

Believe me, I have spent countless hours pondering my feelings, understanding and thoughts around my origin story and abortion. I was innocent and yet I absorbed all the stress hormones of my mother, while in her womb. Her despair. Her agony. Her suicidal ideation. After I was born, I absorbed my parent’s violent words, aggression and contempt for one another for 19 years until I moved out. Even as a young adult, I had no boundaries with them and often experienced the continued violence between them. A deep impact of anxiety and depression stemmed from all of this. A sense of enmeshment with my mother was my only survival. A she could not love me as I needed to be loved.

For years, steeped in a conservative Christian ideology, I identified as pro-life, until my mother passed away. A few years before her death, I began to notice her decline due to the years of trauma she experienced. She isolated, pushing friends and family away. She wrapped herself in magical thinking, which was a sect of Christianity called the ‘health, wealth & prosperity gospel’. This is a belief that all Christians should be healthy, wealthy and prosperous, if only they have enough faith. All the while, a subtle undercurrent of bitterness and resentment consumed my mother’s body, bringing about disease and finally her early death at 72. I watched all of this, with confusion, not yet able to see the clear picture of how it all connected.

I was shocked when my grandmother, my mother’s mother, told me she was pro-choice one day. I was in my 30’s with four daughters. She was a devout, conservative Christian woman. This did not fit. I reminded her that if abortion had been legal, I would probably not be here.

“I know” she answered, “but a woman should be able to choose.”

I wonder now is she felt guilty for what she and her husband, my grandfather, had forced upon their daughter.

“You made your bed, now you have to lie in it. You marry who you date,” my grandmother told my mother. “You will not bring an illegitimate child into my home” her father shouted.

My grandparents never liked my father, but treated him with polite tolerance. I wonder, if over the years, my grandmother realized the harm done to her daughter by forcing her to marry the man who had raped her on their first date and the man who raped her again shortly after my birth. This was my brother’s conception. Marital rape was only outlawed in the USA in 1976. I wonder if she regretted her own words. I wonder if she too witnessed the slow death of my mother. At the time, I could not understand my grandmother. She felt like an enigma.

Recently, I remembered her telling me: “If women could pursue their dreams, I’d probably be an anthropologist.”

She too was caught in this system. With each passing year, I understand more. I watched my gorgeous, talented, gifted mother whither away from deep, unresolved, complex trauma.

I learned from my mother’s life and death, how to LIVE.

After years of my own personal trauma healing, I am so joyful that I exist AND I grieve my mother’s life. Her suffering. Her internalized patriarchy and misogyny. Her spiritual trauma. Her emotional abuse. Her psychological damage. For the longest time, I could not see it. I deeply regret that I didn’t know then what I know now.

Trauma, according to Dr. Peter Levine, is not what happens to us. It is what happens inside of us when we have no empathetic supportive witness. Eleven years after her death, I am my mother’s witness.

I am for life AND for choice. The two are not mutually exclusive. To have life, we must also have choice.

I am for human flourishing. I want fullness of life for everyone, especially those who are oppressed: women, LGBTQ people, people of color, immigrants, trans-women and men, people stuck in generational poverty, abused children, single mothers, those caught in the incarceration system, those on death row, and for our planet. Truly, the list is long.

The only way to give this kind of life is to also give choice. Choice allows the means to have agency over your body. Choice allows the means to simply exist in peace just as you are, as your authentic self. Choice allows the means to transition, to not be abused physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Choice allows the means to be forgiven and heal from past harmful behaviors. Choice allows the means to honor our sacred Earth and stop destroying our planet. The list goes on and on.

Choice is the means to LOVE.

I am grateful to be alive, to grow and learn AND I lament that my mother felt she had no choice.

#2 Our Deepest Wound is Our Healing Work in the World- Women Talking

Trigger warning—this story, my story is about rape. Please take care of yourself.

I went twice to see the movie, Women Talking: Do Nothing. Stay and Fight. Leave.

I watched it once with my Rogue Sister and once by myself. The first viewing felt like a wave washing over me. I couldn’t ground into the dialogue, which is the heart of the movie. The conversations held by women in a dire situation were profound, complex. Women who have to make what is probably the most important decision of their lives, a choice that also ripples out to the safety and wellbeing of their children.

Just like in our real lives everything turns on our decisions. And we often act under an opaque lens of misogyny, patriarchy and hierarchy. (see my first post here)

I had read the true story of Women Talking, which is about a Mennonite Community in Bolivia where some of the men in their community used cow tranquilizer spray to incapacitate families at night. Then they crept into the house to brutally rape the women and children. The women woke bloodied, bruised and confused. The elders of the community said it was “female imagination” or satanic attacks. It went on for 5 years until they were caught in 2010.

The ‘Real’ story burdened me during my first viewing of the movie, because reality was harsher. The women stayed. The women did nothing. There’s talk that the rapes still happen today. The second time I watched the movie alone, I was able to fully immerse into the deep and poignant conversations. Emotions flowed through me and I exited the theater feeling hopeful.

We can change things.

We do have conscious power.

We can act.

We do have a voice.

All those decades of my desire to share my story came to a point of action. Thus these posts.

My Voice is necessary.

However; please note, I am not judging the real Mennonite women for not leaving. That is the wrong focus. The most important focus in this movie, in my life, in the lives of women and children is:

WHY DO MEN RAPE?

HOW DO WE TEACH OUR BOYS TO BE FEMINISTS? (by Feminist, I mean “For Women”, no misogyny, no patriarchy, no hierarchy)

The first time my mother told me I was conceived by date rape, I was 23 years old and already struggling in my two year marriage. It didn’t feel shocking. It felt like the last puzzle piece had slipped into place creating the complete image of my parent’s marriage. Yes, my mother married the man who raped her. There was no support to do otherwise by her parents.

“You will not bring an illegitimate child into my home!” her father bellowed. (Patriarchy/Misogyny)

“You’ve made your bed, now you have to lie in it” her mother explained. (Internalized Patriarchy/Misogyny)

This was 1960. Abortion was not yet legal. And at this writing, it’s a convoluted mess of state laws throughout the land as the Supreme Court overturned Roe vs Wade in 2022.

But wait, you think…if your mother had aborted you, you would not be here to write this. Yes, that is true AND it’s about controlling women…For another post.

My mother ran away for a time. She stayed with an aunt and uncle. Then went to a home for unwed mothers, but felt she couldn’t give me up for adoption. She prayed I’d be a girl. Why? I wonder, when girls like her had so little autonomy. Finally, her family found her wandering the railroad tracks in the middle of the night, desperate and suicidal. They took her home. One July day, she and my father married.

After my mother told me her story, I went to lunch with my father.

“Is this true?” I asked. “Yes”, he chuckled. “Today it would be called date rape. You have to understand, I had such a strong sex drive.”

As I think back to that moment, I know my body was numb. I did not yet know the full impact of his actions on me and the years of my parents volatile-explosive relationship on my soul, my psyche, my self worth. The gradual unveiling began. Isn’t all of life a gradual unveiling as we open to consciousness?

In a flat voice, I replied, “Dad, my husband has a strong sex drive and he has never raped me.”

My rape conception had a huge inner impact on my psyche. My very first memory was steeped in the feeling of how ‘bad’ I was. Underneath that was an existential sense that I did not have the right to exist. Of course, this cannot be articulated at 4 years old. But I remember the feeling as I crouched under a blanket with my brother and friend, Bobby. We sat on the cold cement floor under the stairwell of our apartment complex. Bobby had a book of matches. Our faces lit up as he struck each match and we watched it burn, sulfur filling our nostrils. My mother found us. Yanking the blanket off yelling, “What are you doing?!”

I knew to my bones I was ‘bad’. This feeling of being ‘bad’ and not having the right to exist was a consistent programming in my very cells.

In yogic philosophy, the Right to Exist is the Root Chakra, our beginning foundation. A chakra is like an energetic center in our body. The most common yogic philosophy says we have 7 chakras. This was key to my healing. I cannot begin to tell you how much the sensation of feeling my feet on the ground, or my butt in a chair or my back body on the ground helped to heal me. It is profound. Having an embodied experience of being held by the Earth by gravity began to alter that programing in my cells. The bodily sensation of being held is healing. I know I am here. I know I have a right to be here. I exist. Nothing my father or mother did or did not do can change that.

The feeling of being ‘bad’ began to shift as I learned to have compassion for myself. As I began to see my humanity with all of it’s gifts and shadows, when I began to actively get to know mySelf, all my child parts and cherish them, my self worth began to heal too.

There is much more subtlety to share here, but that’s for another time.

The point is my father and the men in that Mennonite Community felt entitled to a woman/women/children and their bodies. They only exist to serve men. There is no sense of the sacredness, nor humanity of the women and children. Rapists simply dominate. Rapists simply take. In the full story of how my parents met, there was an ownership mentality from the very beginning. When my father saw my mother, he announced to all the other frat boys there,“She is mine!”

Internalized patriarchy and misogyny trained my mother not to stand in her value or worth as a sacred human being. She had been taught since birth that men are above women. (Heirarchy/Patriarchy) This was modeled in the church she grew up in and by her parents. For my father, she was simply an ornament, a body for the taking, for penetration. To her parents, she was to be an obedient, good Christian girl. She must please them to please God.

In The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness & Healing In A Toxic Culture, by Dr. Gabor Mate’, he writes in chapter 23 titled, ‘Society’s Shock Absorbers: Why Women Have It Worse’:

“The sexualization of women is another source of ill health. Being for the use another can make of you is an assault on the self. Girls and women are much more likely to be subjected to it, even sold the seductive idea that there is empowerment in it.”

“Meanwhile, [patriarchy-misogyny] teaches many boys to associate pleasure with domination and a shutdown of tender feelings. The suppression of vulnerable emotions, of course, is one manifestation of male trauma, leading inexorably to a withering of compassion for others—-especially when those others have something we want, as in every instance of date rape or nonconsensual sexual aggression.”

I know a kind man, who as a boy remembers his grandfather joke whenever he saw a pregnant woman, “I wonder what got into her?”

This same grandfather had fun “goosing” his two grandsons, which meant he’d stick his thumb up their butts as they walked by making a goose sound. Both of these actions are toxic. This kind man loves his grandfather and does not see the harm in what he did.

My father lacks empathy. I have even said as much to his face. He answers in the positive.

“Yes, I know I do. I’ve been that way as long as I can remember. I don’t know why.”

I wonder what happened to my father as a young boy.

Patriarchy & Misogyny have been around for a long time, slowly by slowly we can change things.

My Voice is Necessary.

#1 Our Deepest Wound Becomes our Work in the World - My Intention

Misogyny, Patriarchy and Hierarchy deeply wounded me. I’m not the only one. There are billions of us through time and space of our human existence. Its wounding continues today. Healing from this wound has enlivened me to heal others, to speak out, to transform, as well as shift in all the little corners and places of society where I exist. Healing always begins with ourselves first. Like a pebble dropped in a still pond, the rippling rings of consciousness expand outward into the past, present and future.

It begins with Misogyny the dislike of, contempt for, or ingrained prejudice against women. This unconscious or seemingly “normal” way of seeing women impacted me to my very DNA. It has harmed every woman who has ever existed. The harm also extends to any human with an overt feminine sensitivity and soul. For me, my wounding is intergenerational passed down from grandmother to daughter to granddaughter, which is the nature of trauma. Every woman has had it passed down whether they are conscious of it or not. We also internalize it. Sometimes blatant and sometimes insidiously subtle, it taints all of us. It’s still something I have to consistently root out. This will be, for me and every woman, a lifelong practice. This should be the work of men too, yet some men balk at the idea.

This is a rant for another time.

Patriarchy is a system of society or government where men hold the power and women are largely excluded from it. The power of men over women runs deep in our society and especially in religious subcultures like Christianity. As a child in Sunday School, I was told the very top of everything was God, our authority. Then just below God, were men, below that were women and below that were children. The Earth was implied as the least important, because it was, after all, going to burn in the end. This message was repeated over and over again throughout my lifetime in explicit and implicit ways. The nondenominational church is where I met my husband, married, and raised my five children. This belief was so deeply ingrained in me that I could not see it, until one day I could.

That’s a story for another time.

Hierarchy means a system or organization in which people or groups are ranked one above the other according to status or authority. Isabella Wilkerson calls this a caste system in her book Caste: The Origins of Our Discontent. This system says that men are above women, rich above poor, white people above Black, Latino, Indiginous and Asian people, educated above uneducated, housed above unhoused, non-addict above addict, ‘normal’ mental health above mentally ill, human being above nonhumans, Earth and even over the universe.

The insidious danger of hierarchy takes away the sacredness of others. One category of human cannot see the sacredness of another category of human. Neither can they see or know the sacredness of Earth, the Cosmos and everything in it. Hierarchy creates disconnection, dehumanization, and de-sacredizing, which leads to violence, death, extraction, harm and the loss of our very hearts and souls.

And so we have it. These three false beliefs have done more harm for the lives of women and children than anything else I know, simply because they thread through every facet of society and the systems we’ve created and live and breathe in. My story is no different than billions of others before me. I am not unique to this, but I have been healing from these three diabolical belief systems for as long as I can remember and I have inadvertently benefited and participated in them, as well. And that is the work. Awareness.

As a young girl, maybe even back to my infancy or as a fetus in my mother’s womb; I’ve been healing, though unconsciously. The Life Force of Liberation was moving through me even when I was completely unaware. Bit by bit as consciousness expanded, I started to feel it in my body, then I began to see it and finally name it. Naming it is crucial, for it brings clarity.

This is my story, which I hope to share in tiny bits and pieces like scraps of cloth sewn together to create a beautiful, vibrant quilt. My intention is to share in this blog with weekly or bi-monthly posts. I’ll find my rhythm. These posts are my testimony. I promise to write with as much truth and vulnerability as I possibly can. I may change names and circumstances, so as not to bring harm.

My intention is to bring the wounding and damage, into the Light. For it’s only in the Light that healing begins. In Christian circles, we often talked about sharing our testimony. This was the public telling of what God had done for us. Therefore; no one could refute it. What I share in the coming weeks is a testimony to the generative, thriving Life Force of Healing and Liberation that is built into our very DNA.

No one may refute it.

The Mystery of Somatic Movement

Our bodies are incredible mysteries. Healing through somatic movement is one of those mysteries of which I have participated in and don’t quite fully understand. And I embrace the not knowing. Mystery is sacred.

Years of personal work healing from childhood trauma led me to this somatic space. We hold the pain and the freedom within our tissues. Many, many practitioners and well know therapists attest to this: Dr. Peter Levine, Resmaa Menakam, Prentis Hemphill, Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, Dr. Diane Poole Heller, Staci Haines, Dr. Gabor Mate’, Dr. Scott Lyons and many, many more that I cannot name here.

I began learning in somatics, because I knew more in-depth healing would come through my body. It intuitively felt right. Yoga had helped me inhabit my body. Talk therapy helped me reframe my perspectives. Inner Child/Re-Parenting work helped me find compassion and healing for myself. Somatic work was next. It offers much hope for humanity and many people shy away from anything to do with the body. Sometimes that’s a protective stance, sometimes it’s out of fear or a lack of desire to do the hard work of healing.

I don’t write this to claim I’m better than anyone else. I write this to bring hope and as a way to paint a picture of my journey, so far. It’s a life long path. For me, the pain became too unbearable. The anxiety I carried daily was consistent and sometimes debilitating. Occasionally, I would move into a full blown panic attack. My last one, was in September 2021. It lasted 3 days, disturbing my sleep and sense of safety.

I had learned enough to get myself to a place where I felt safe enough. Then I began to move my big muscles dailly to release the adrenaline that was saturating my tissues. In the desert where I was, I found reservoirs to swim in as it was too hot to hike. Floating in blue water with blue sky and billowy clouds surrounded by red cliffs was surreal in it’s beauty and holding.

Finally, I walked a desert labyrinth asking “What is this? What is happening?” Just as I entered the center, my dear Soul Sister called me. Listening to my tearfilled words, she gleaned the question: “What does it mean for you to belong to yourself? What does it mean for April to belong to April?”

I carry that question with me each day.

Developing a self is key in childhood development. Mine had been stunted. For far too long, I had existed as a connection to others without knowing who I am. This may be hard to understand for some, but trust me when I say, I did not know who April was nor could I remember a time when I was Me. Now slowly, gradually, I am Becoming April.

I started working with Dr. Mindy, a local practitioner after Covid. By that point, I connected my childhood fear to a continued pattern that led to anxiety and panic attacks. As with much of my healing, it stemmed way back into a place when I was alone, steeped in fear with no support of any adult or my parents. When I recall steeping in that fear, it always began when I was in bed at night. As an adult, this is when my panic attacks began. In bed at night when I was trying to sleep.

Our set intention upon arriving at Dr. Mindy’s office was to work with releasing my ancient fear. This happens through the body. My body needed to complete the movement and release of that fear. Upon arrival, we sat to chat with tea. Dr. Mindy is also a plant medicine practitioner. Plants have medicinal and healing qualities. I took a sip or two of my tea as we spoke when I began to feel an inner trembling in my body. I paused to tell her and leaned back with one hand on my heart and the other on my belly. I’d studied enough to know this was good. Something was happening and happening fast.

With Dr. Mindy’s guidance, her calm, gentle loving voice, I tracked the tremors as they flowed through and around my body. Eventually, I climbed onto a massage table, where the shaking continued. I could feel channels within me open and flow. I could feel cold, closed ones, that eventually opened. Then I had one big contraction of my whole body with crying, wailing and other noises. My whole body curled inward and up. Finally, I collapsed back, released and calm.

A shift of healing came to me that day. I could feel it to my very bones. Dr. Mindy assured me more tremors would come that evening and sure enough, they did. Gentle, tender trembles as I lie in bed. No fear. Since that day I’ve had more experiences of healing from spiritual trauma and some voice trauma. The spiritual trauma was so embedded in me that I recognized it as terror. Sheer terror. From that liberation, I created an art piece to remind myself of my new found freedom.

After working with my Voice trauma, I went to bed and woke in the middle of the night feeling the mystery and beauty and joy of all this. The Truth of it felt good. It felt like Truth deep in my bones and tissue. The joy reverberated all night long as I rejoiced in the Mystery of our Creation and how we are made to heal physically, emotionally and spiritually. I cannot fully tell you how all this works, but I can give testimony to our bodies wisdom and the fierce love of Life Force!

My Sense of the Divine Is In My Embodiment

God, whom I prefer to call Living Presence, shows up in the nuances of the Felt Sense of my life.

Living Presence is within me and as such, I feel the subtleties of the invitations to movement, freedom, and healing love. Listening and sensing inward has become my practice of embodiment. This knowing has grown along with me as I have deepened my spiritual life.

This’ Felt Sense Knowing’ has always been apart of me, as far back as I can remember. Though I could not have articulated it then. Hidden, like a precious pearl within me, I was not cognitive of its existence, but there was a shy subtle something. My child-heart longed for union with God. It felt like an ache I couldn’t seem to soothe. Over decades, with self discovery, patience, tenderness and gentle care, the Divine and I have unearthed this hidden pearl together. 

This discovering is my life long journey.

Childhood forms us and from the outside we looked like an average, white, upper middle class family. From the inside there was consistent, volatile conflict. Emotional and sometimes physical abuse was common. Also, from the moment of my conception, I was awash in the amniotic fluid of my mother’s despair, fear, anger and deep sorrow. The very toxic vibrations of our home were absorbed into my body as well as my siblings.

This is not a condemnation of my parents. They did the best they could in the situation they found themselves in and with who they were at the time with their own trauma and embedded cultural lies. Most sad of all is that they chose to stay in dysfunction for 52 years until my mother passed away.

Our bodies take in approximately 70% of the data from our surroundings, sending it to our brain. Our brains take in approximately only 30% of information. Our bodies feel and sense into the environment, the smells, sounds, and sights. They carefully register the facial expressions and movements of the other. They even feel into the nervous systems of the people around them. All this information is sent unconsciously to our brains, which then asks:

Safe or unsafe?

Calm or chaotic?

Rest or run?

Fight or collapse?

Held or neglected?

Seen or unseen?

In order to survive, our bodies adapt our behavior and way of being in such a manner as to keep us safe. This is an incredible intelligence, of which I give God praise!

My mother and father’s nervous systems were in consistent, explosive chaos. This shaped me. And that deep longing for Living Presence, which was already embedded in me, ached, and communicated through subtleties of felt senses. I discovered this first in nature or what I like to call, Mother Earth.

Many of my ‘Felt Sense’ memories of being held, safe, loved and in a state of wonder were found lying in the crook of a pink, feathery mimosa tree. Or it was during the long summer days spent exploring the rocky banks of a rushing, glacial river and its surrounding dark, green forest. It was here that I felt embodied or in myself. Home. It was here in the nuances of the bright, green, inchworm and the wonder of watching it climb up a bough, that the Felt Sense of the Divine came to my awareness. It was an enchanted place, vibrant and alive. It would take me years to understand that I too am a part of nature, created by the Divine. 

I too am vibrant and alive!

When I began to take yoga classes, I knew intuitively this practice was healing to me. I was able to be in my body. This felt sense capacity of what it was to be myself grew. When I studied the Christian mystics, I learned that others long before me, also noticed nuances, and subtleties of Source within themselves and the Divine Presence in the Earth. When I sat with my spiritual director, I was held with such tender, compassionate openness, that I could relax into myself and speak of the things that brought confusion. Bit by bit, clarity came. As I studied trauma and somatic healing, I leaned into trusting my body. It knew what it needed to heal.

I’d sense into my pre-verbal baby-ness by allowing my body to move as it wanted to move. Something would shift. Healing. I’d enter a somatic meditation and sense a larger universal truth about my narrative, which shifted me out of my microscopic story. A reframe. More healing. Sometimes, I was drawn to creating collage or to splatter colorful paints on paper. Maybe a symbol came and I’d draw and refine it, revealing another layer, so that love poured in. Soon, I found a rhythm of listening into the Felt Sense and trusting the flow of Embodied Living Presence within me.

Another name for ‘Felt Sense’ is Interoceptive Awareness. It can be as simple as hearing and feeling your stomach growl with hunger or as subtle as a sense of something behind your heart that feels pained or hurt. This could be a deep emotion that needs tending. The nuanced work is to ‘be with’ the sensation without judgement, agenda or goals. This gives room and space for whatever is there to arise to our awareness. In a sense, it’s what we do as spiritual directors, and we can be with the ‘Felt Sense’ in ourselves. We companion others as they move inward and feel into their inner selves. This Self in Presence and companioning awareness allows Love to enter in and healing to happen. Sometimes it’s such a tiny nuanced expression that I wonder what happened, but later I notice a small transformation.

Writing about this type of experience of Living Presence is difficult. It’s challenging to find words that explain nuances and subtleties. We are body, mind and soul. That’s the whole of us created by God. In the Christian tradition and our Western culture, the body has been ignored for many reasons. Sadly, this has caused disconnection from Self and disconnection from Presence. Despite this, Love is always flowing, showing us through science and spirituality, nature and our bodies that we are made for healing. In fact, another name for God might be ‘Forward Moving Energy’. This to me, is the consistent gentle beckoning of Living Presence towards liberation, healing and love.

I can feel it vibrating in my body right now! Can you?

A Glimpse...

Recently, I saw a short video clip on Instagram. A young evangelical worship leader was listening to his own music on his SUV console. He pans the camera briefly to include his wife in the passenger seat. Both are beautiful people, long blonde hair, vibrant with perfect white teeth. He’s charismatic with a large following of like minded people. He teases with the words: “I’m holding her hostage…”

When the camera pans to her, she turns, smiles a gorgeous smile, then for just the briefest of seconds her smile seems to freeze as she turns her head away, the smile drops and she chomps her gum. 

For me, it was a glimpse, a bodily remembering of my past self. A deep time re-membering of dissonance.

Living in dissonance is costly.

I knew that nano second of turning away, the frozen smile, then the sudden falling of the smile. Her mute presence was familiar too. It was a visual representing to me, decades of my internal discord.  Once I was the submissive wife of a man in ministry, who believed she was doing god’s work. A woman who felt uncomfortable in the spotlight, I prefered behind the scenes. Mothering, and doing all I could to support the man in the ministry.

Please understand, there is nothing wrong with this model, it’s just that for me I was not my full Authentic self.

Yet there were those moments where something didn’t feel right. The spin being put on the ministry, the counting of people’s raised hands who had prayed the prayer. (Evangelicals, you’ll know what I mean) The rising thought of questions on the why and the how that just didn’t seem to sit well. For years I simply ignored this unsettling deep in my being. It showed up in that intense moment of uncomfortable feeling, then I’d shove it down, so that the discomfort would go away. Afterall, comfort is our god.

So in that flash of frozen smile, I remembered the deep bodily feelings of discontent with my role as submissive wife, serving my husband and children above any of my own needs. The burnout that was present. The striving for unattainable perfection. The proving of myself. This was what it meant to be godly, I believed. My muteness, a prize. The pressing down of my own natural leadership abilities, especially among men was crucial. The uncomfortableness with how the ministry my husband and I served in for 21 years conducted its ‘business’ of saving souls, nagged at me.  I easily blocked the nag from my awareness.

How could it be that something felt ‘wrong’ when this was ‘god’s work’?

I couldn’t name it. It was just there. These swirling discords were submerged deep in my bones, but my conscious was unable to connect to them. I was divided. My body from my mind, my heart from my soul. What I was told to do and be as a woman in the subculture of the evangelical church and especially as the wife of a missionary, created an even more unhealthy dissonance with mySelf.

I was a lion, who was told I had to be a lamb. 

To be in the tribe, I must vote Republican. I must vote for war. I must not see white supremacy, nor the churches connection to it. I went along with it all. I homeschooled my children, because the educational system was ungodly. I kept the ‘homefires burning’, while my husband traveled overseas. I stayed in the background, behind the scenes where I belonged. I could lead and I did, but only with other women.

I too had those brief moments of camera flashes. Beautiful smile, disord underneath. I look at old photos and I see it, just under my smile, and behind my eyes. I’ve seen it in photos of my own mother and her mother. The crushing of what could have been.

Much of it felt wrong, yet I ignored it. Much of it felt wrong, but I could not allow myself to see, nor to let it rise from my bones to my heart. The reality of it was too frightening. It was the pattern I’d learned from my female ancestors.

What changed?

It was my own Great Turning, which began when I was 44. When suffering brought true excruciating discomfort, transformation began, only I had no idea then. There it was, dissonance, fully present, fully invading, impossible to ignore. I continued to fight against the dissonance, the Reality. I spent 10 years in deep wrestling darkness. Then I began to emerge. The shifting freed me. Now when dissonance arises, I tend to it.

Today, as I live and breath more fully, more bodily, more connected to mySelf I’ve discovered:

I can have my own spirituality! 

I can have my own experiences of and with the Divine! 

I can pray to Momma rather than father!

I can have my own life outside of my husband and adult children and grandchildren! 

I have agency over my body! 

And my body is beautiful with all of it’s lumps, bumps and droopy skin!

I have wisdom! 

I can speak up with power and truth! 

I can vote my conscious, not what is ‘expected’ of me or what I’m told is the only way to vote!

I can be rejected by the tribe and still thrive! 

MySelf is very good! 

My heart is full of deep Love and also capable of great harm. I choose Love. And I am human, which means I will sometimes harm.

Perhaps I am projecting onto this young woman who is wife of a ‘man of god’ and mother of four. If so, forgive me as I intend no ill will. And yet, I wonder if this young woman, the wife of a popular evangelical leader feels divided too?

I wonder if there’s dissonance deep within her bones?

I wonder if one day, her heart with crack wide open?

I wonder if she knows her true Self instead of what’s she told is herself?

The parts within—Dissonance

A Healing Stance...

I live and breathe and

wander Earth

with open heart, 

now, rooted  

strong back rising heavenward. 

I am surrounded

by Love. 

I breathe her in, 

And ‘Let Go’ with each exhale.

A Healing Stance…

I notice my body.

Tight, constricted spaces,

past traumas perhaps.

I feel into them

with compassionate fingers, 

massaging spicy balm

over each cell.

I practice tenderness,

love

I go gently with mySelf.

A Healing Stance…

I see my Infant Self,

her conception and

helplessness.

I comfort her

holding her close 

in my arms,

remembering screaming parents,

chaos encircling her.

Slowly by Slowly

the quiet will come.

I show her the space beyond.

A Healing Stance…

Angry toddler

has no control

and so she acts in Rage.

She cannot escape tumultuous 

home.

I scoop her up

plant kisses upon her head.

Soothing whispers, 

my lips brush her rosebud ear.

She melts,

softening like butter,

and giggles.

A Healing Stance…

Lil’ Fearful one is eight,

lying alone

engulfed by darkness

fearful of demons, satan,

monsters, 

her mother’s stories,

swirling around her.

She chants her mantra

of protection

until she falls into fitful sleep.

A Healing Stance…

When Lil’ Fearful One shows up,

I sit her on my lap

in the dark.

We look around

soft colors appear.

“You are safe” I assure her.

“You are here with me

And you are whole.”

“The stories are only stories,

perceptions from your mother’s world.”

Our nervous systems align

flowing into peace.

A Healing Stance…

Judgmental One armors up,

protecting her heart, for

no one can be trusted.

The world is black and white,

she thinks.

Right and Wrong.

This and That.

Us and Them.

Gray, she was taught,

is an evil color.

A Healing Stance…

When Judgmental One shows up,

I tenderly stroke her cheek,

unclench her fists,

release her jaw.

“Notice the breeze

 blowing through the trees”,

I beckon.

“Listen to the sound of the wind”

“What you judge is what you repress”,

I remind her.

Everything Belongs

even suffering.

We are all capable of great good

and great harm.

I feel into Love.

I choose Love.

I am human.

Healing Stance…