My journey of crawling out from a life of abuse continued with a homework assignment I received. The assignment: to consider what I wanted and to put it on paper. I sat quietly one day with a pad and pen. “Breathe,” I told myself. “Breathe again.” I tried hard to settle myself down and to quiet my mind. To allow myself to ponder what I really wanted. I filled one and a half pages of that legal pad in a matter of minutes.
It was a question I never even thought to ask myself. I was too busy living in fight-or-flight mode, trying to survive, to ever have such a question enter my mind. I was surprised at how much fun I had answering it.
Five years passed and I forgot about that day until I stumbled upon that legal pad while searching for a picture. As I read my response, I was proud to see I had accomplished many of the items on my list. On the last line of the first page, I wrote: “I think I want to write a book.” The very last line of the second page read: “I am going to write a book.”
I was amazed when I read those two sentences−because I had absolutely no memory of writing them. The seed was obviously planted then, because when I stumbled upon that old assignment, I was well into writing my story.
At the time, I didn’t sleep well, often waking up every hour or two with lots on my mind. One morning I decided to meet a friend/client for lunch. I asked her to help me with my book. She said she would be honored to help, adding, “What will make your book unique is you.” Then she asked me, “Do you remember years back when you asked me to write it for you?” Another surprise for me−I had no memory of that conversation either.
You see, I was being “nudged” to tell my story, long before I was able to recognize it. Before long I started a routine of sitting at my kitchen table at 3:00 or 4:00 a.m. I wrote for hours and hours. Yes, my first draft−all 400 pages typed−was handwritten while my son slept upstairs. Sometimes my friend would come to my home with her laptop and type away as I read to her. Other times, I would hand over that trusty legal pad that had become a part of me, and she would type up the pages at her leisure.
Reliving the traumas of my life through this cathartic experience required many hours of work and produced many tears. This purification process brought up and out many repressed memories stuffed so deeply they were killing me physically, emotionally, and psychologically. My hard work has helped me detoxify my heart and soul, an ongoing, lifelong process.
Just a simple question. Is today the day you sit with a quiet mind and ask yourself, What do I really want?
Hugs,
Casey
Photo Courtesy of Clicksy
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